SEC v. Kevin McDonnell (undisclosed control blocks, 2015)

Settled

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In September 2015 the SEC settled administrative proceedings against Kevin McDonnell, the named financial officer of shell Caribbean Pacific Marketing, finding its registration statement hid that a disbarred, previously enjoined attorney was running it. He agreed to a $7,500 penalty and bars.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$7.5k

Disgorgement

—

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

$7.5k

Alleged gain

—

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 instituted and settled this proceeding on September 3, 2015 as Securities Act release 9900, without admission or denial by McDonnell.

The order finds that Caribbean Pacific's 2012 Form S-1 listed McDonnell as an officer of a sun-care business, but that William Reilly, a disbarred attorney previously enjoined by the Commission, was acting as a de facto executive officer and control person, choosing the business model and dealing with counsel and auditors, while McDonnell was essentially a figurehead. The company was to serve as a shell for a reverse merger, but the charge is the concealed control and the false registration statement, and no shares were sold.

This library tags the matter as undisclosed control blocks. The record previously carried the reverse-merger tag. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's.

McDonnell was ordered to cease and desist from Sections 17(a)(1) and 17(a)(3) of the Securities Act, barred from penny-stock offerings and from serving as an officer or director of a public reporting company, and ordered to pay a $7,500 civil penalty.

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.

• Undisclosed control blocks — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2015-09-03 Administrative proceeding instituted (cease-and-desist)

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 order

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.

Related actions

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

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.