The B.C. Securities Commission has found a North Vancouver man and two U.S. citizens deliberately manipulated the share price of mineral company Sungro Minerals Corp., contrary to regulatory rules.
The securities regulator found Mark Aaron McLeary of North Vancouver and Robert Hainey and Jerry Williams of the United States manipulated the share price of Sungro — a Nevada corporation that had its head office in Surrey — in June and July of 2009.
Sungro was traded on the U.S. Over-the-Counter Bulletin Board penny stock market, which is considered much riskier than trading on regular stock markets because of the comparative ease with which very small share prices can be manipulated with a small amount of either hype or negative commentary.
The securities panel found that at the start of the trading period, Sungro had only $299 in assets. Despite there being “no real change in its prospects and no news that would justify significant increases,” over a 13-day period shares increased in value from 45 cents to a high of $4.75 on a high volume of trading.
The commission found the three men were involved in heavily promoting the shares on an investors’ message board call Monk’s Den, run by Williams on an investor website called investorshub.com.
The securities commission has not yet announced any disciplinary action.
