SEC v. Barry Honig, et al. (pump and dump, 2020)

Judgment entered

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In March 2020 the Securities and Exchange Commission announced final consent judgments in the Southern District of New York against Michael Brauser, John O'Rourke III, John Stetson and three of their companies, and a partial judgment against HS Contrarian Investments, in the Honig microcap pump-and-dump case. The judgments carry injunctions, penny stock bars, and disgorgement, interest and penalties of $1,175,176 (Brauser), $1,153,326 (O'Rourke) and $1,154,669 (Stetson).

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 March 11, 2020 as release LR-24765. The respondents named are Barry Honig, Michael Brauser, John O'Rourke III, John Stetson, Grander Holdings, Inc., ATG Capital LLC, Stetson Capital Investments Inc. and HS Contrarian Investments LLC (4 individuals, 4 entities). The action was brought in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York.

The release says the defendants repeatedly boosted the prices of three public companies and then dumped their shares. Brauser and Grander were also enjoined under the registration provisions, and O'Rourke and ATG under the anti-manipulation provisions of Exchange Act Section 9(a). Honig had separately reached a bifurcated settlement in July 2019, and monetary remedies against HS Contrarian were left for later. The money paid combines disgorgement, interest and penalties and is not split in this record. This library tags the matter as pump and dump.

The conduct is recorded against equities.

Non-monetary relief recorded: conduct-based injunction, penny stock bar.

For the regulator's own account of the facts, read the primary document linked above. This page deliberately summarises the structured record rather than reproducing the release.

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. 2020-03-11 Litigation release published

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

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.