SEC v. Barry C. Honig, et al. (pump and dump, 2018)

Settled

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In September 2018 the SEC charged ten individuals and ten entities, led by Barry Honig, over alleged pump-and-dump schemes in three microcap companies that generated more than $27 million from stock sales. By March 2020 nearly all defendants had consented to judgments, many of them bifurcated with money remedies reserved, and only Robert Ladd was still litigating, so the case is recorded as settled with that caveat.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

—

Disgorgement

—

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

—

Alleged gain

$27m

A dash means the release did not state a figure we could extract, not that the figure is zero. Penalty and disgorgement are stored separately so aggregates across the library do not double-count the same dollars.

What is alleged to have happened

the Securities and Exchange Commission announced this matter on September 7, 2018 as release LR-24262. The respondents named are Barry C. Honig, John Stetson, Michael Brauser, John R. O'Rourke III, Mark Groussman, Phillip Frost, Elliot Maza, Robert Ladd, Brian Keller, John H. Ford, Alpha Capital Anstalt, ATG Capital LLC, GRQ Consultants, Inc., HS Contrarian Investments, LLC, Grander Holdings, Inc., Melechdavid, Inc., OPKO Health, Inc., Frost Gamma Investments Trust, Southern Biotech, Inc. and Stetson Capital Investments Inc. (10 individuals, 10 entities).

The complaint alleges Honig arranged the purchase of large discounted blocks of each issuer, then he and his associates ran promotions and manipulative trading to lift the price and show active volume before dumping their shares into the inflated market. The release says Frost took part in two of the three schemes. This library tags the matter as pump and dump.

Four later SEC releases show how most of the case ended. In January and February 2019 six defendants including Phillip Frost, OPKO Health, Mark Groussman and Alpha Capital settled, together paying more than $7.8 million in disgorgement, interest and penalties, and one entity was dismissed. In July 2019 Honig and GRQ consented to bifurcated judgments with injunctions and penny stock bars, leaving disgorgement and penalties to be decided on a later SEC motion. On 9 March 2020 the court entered consent judgments against Brauser, O'Rourke, Stetson and their entities with injunctions and penny stock bars, ordering Brauser, O'Rourke and Stetson to pay $1,175,176, $1,153,326 and $1,154,669 in disgorgement, interest and penalties combined. A 16 March 2020 release says Ladd was the only defendant that had not settled and the SEC had added claims against him. None of the settlements involved admissions, and because the releases give combined sums and some remedies were still reserved, the money fields are left empty. The sources do not show what happened to the reserved remedies or to the claims against Ladd, so the 9 March 2020 date is the last consent judgment described.

What technique is this, and how does it work?

This action is tagged with one technique in our taxonomy. The tagging is ours: regulators charge statutory provisions, not technique names, so the mapping is an editorial judgement described in our editorial policy.

• Pump and dump — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2018-09-07 Litigation release published
2. 2019-03-22 SEC reports six final consent judgments (Frost, OPKO, Groussman, Alpha and others) totalling over $7.8 million
3. 2019-07-10 Bifurcated consent judgments entered against Honig and GRQ
4. 2020-03-09 Consent judgments entered against Brauser, O'Rourke, Stetson and entities
5. 2020-03-16 SEC says Robert Ladd is the only non-settling defendant

Primary documents

Everything on this page derives from the documents below. Where our summary and the primary document disagree, the primary document is right.

• SEC litigation release
• SEC litigation release LR-24431
• SEC litigation release LR-24529 (Honig, GRQ)
• SEC litigation release LR-24765 (Brauser, O'Rourke, Stetson)
• SEC litigation release LR-24771 (Ladd)

The linked release is a work of the United States government and is not subject to copyright. Our summary and narrative above are our own writing.

Same matter

The library links these 2 records because they appear to concern one matter: the same lead defendant, an overlapping technique tag and close filing dates, or a shared court docket or a release that cites the other. Records are listed by date filed.

This grouping is the library's, made by matching names, techniques, dates and citations when the site is built. It is not the regulator's or a court's determination that the records are one case, and it errs towards missing a link rather than making a false one.

Related actions

Other actions in the library sharing at least one technique tag with this one.

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.