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IPFS News Link • Economy - Economics USA

Deep Capture Files Major Lawsuit Against the SEC

• http://www.deepcapture.com, Mark Mitchell

This is the first lawsuit against the SEC ever filed by a journalist seeking information about the SEC's failure to regulate naked short selling, one of the most serious crimes affecting the American markets. I have filed the lawsuit with help from Gary Aguirre, a former senior enforcement official with the SEC, famous for having blown the whistle on the protection that top SEC officials were providing to hedge fund Pequot Capital and Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack.

Aguirre made headlines in 2006 by reporting in Congressional testimony that he had been improperly fired by the SEC after complaining that top SEC officials had derailed an investigation into an insider trading scheme perpetrated by Pequot Capital, and that the investigation had likely been derailed because the Aguirre had also been investigating Mack in connection with the insider trading, while Aguirre's supervisor at the SEC was preparing to take a job with Mack's law firm.

What did not make the headlines was the fact that Aguirre reported in that same Congressional testimony that when he was improperly fired, he had been investigating not only insider trading, but also naked short selling. "The investigation was two-pronged," Aguirre reported to Congress. One prong concerned "insider trading." However, the second, and far more important prong, concerned "market manipulation" and, more specifically, "two suspected violations: wash sales and naked shorts."


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