The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged Future Fintech CEO Shanchun Huang with fraud for failing to share his ownership and transactions of Future Fintech stock shortly before he was appointed as CEO.
In 2019 or 2020, Huang allegedly used an offshore account to buy and trade Future Fintech stock in high volumes during a two-month timeframe, and placed multiple orders to buy stock within a short period to drive up prices.
On February 6 2020, the SEC states that Huang’s consisted of 60% of the trading volume and placed numerous buy orders within nine minutes that drove the Future Fintech stock price up from $0.89 to $1.05.
Upon becoming CEO, Huang failed to file change of ownership forms on his holdings of the company stock until March 2021, when he alleged that he no longer owned any stock.
Sheldon L. Pollock, associate regional director of the SEC’s New York regional office stated: “Timely disclosure of insider stock transactions is a fundamental component of the federal securities laws that ensures the fair operation of our securities markets. CEOs should assume that the use of an offshore account will not prevent the staff of the SEC from identifying manipulative trading.”