By James Langton
(April 6 – 17: 40 ET) – Solv-Ex Corp., its Chief Executive Officer John Rendall, and vice president Herbert Campbell II, have been found guilty of violating anti-fraud and insider reporting rules. Solv-Ex is a New Mexico based firm with an Alberta-based subsidiary that has claimed to have developed technology for extracting oil from the oil sands.
The SEC launched suit in 1998 alleging that the firm was issuing false releases to pump itself up. Judge Bruce Black of the District of New Mexico found that the firm and its executives “engaged in a pattern of issuing fraudulent statements that created the false impression that each of three technologies being developed by the company were unqualified successes.”
Judge Black found that Rendall was responsible for the statements and that Campbell knew that the technology wasn’t certain. The SEC became interested in the firm when its stock rose from $5 to as high $38 on the Nasdaq Small Cap Market due to the press releases.
The SEC is seeking injunctions against the firm and its executives as well as monetary penalties against Campbell and Rendall.