Another California company is ordered to return money to investors
The SEC continues to investigate companies that conducted ICOs in 2017 and 2018. Recently, the SEC brought charges against BitClave PTE Ltd., which had an ICO of the Consumer Activity Tokens (Cat) token in the third quarter of 2017. According to the SEC, BitClave sold Cat tokens to approximately 9,500 investors, some of whom were in the U.S.
As was referenced in the BitClave’s offering documents, the company was planning to use the ICO proceeds to develop, administer, and market its blockchain-based search platform for targeted consumer advertising. In addition, in its Cat marketing campaign, BitClave PTE Ltd. emphasized its expectation that the tokens would increase in value, and took steps to make the tokens available for trading on secondary exchanges after the ICO. All of the above made Cat token a security, which sale should have been registered with the SEC.
BitClave decided to wind down its operations, delist Cat tokens, and agreed to settle the charges and pay disgorgement of $25,500,000, prejudgment interest of $3,444,197, and a penalty of $400,000. BitClave also agreed to transfer all remaining Cat tokens in its control to the fund administrator for permanent disabling, publish notice of the order, and request removal of Cat tokens from all digital asset trading platforms.
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