SEC v. McAfee et al. (paid stock promotion, 2020)

Alleged — pending

These are allegations. SEC has filed an action; nothing in it has been proven, and the respondents have not been found liable. Everything described on this page is what the regulator alleges, not what a court has found. See our editorial policy.

Machine-extracted, pending human review. The structured fields on this page were parsed automatically from the regulator's own release, linked below. Read the primary document before relying on any figure here, and tell us if something is wrong.

In 2020, the Securities and Exchange Commission brought an action against McAfee et al., alleging conduct this library classifies as paid stock promotion. No monetary relief has been recorded at this stage; the matter is an allegation and remains unproven. A parallel criminal matter is referenced in the release.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

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Disgorgement

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Prejudgment interest

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Total relief

—

Alleged gain

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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 October 6, 2020 as release LR-24941. The respondents named are McAfee et al. (1 individual, 0 entities). The action was brought in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York.

This library tags the matter as paid stock promotion, based on the conduct the regulator describes. Each tag links to a page explaining how that technique works, what statute it engages, and what penalties comparable actions have attracted. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.

The conduct is recorded against crypto.

Non-monetary relief recorded: conduct-based injunction.

The release references a parallel criminal proceeding. Where a criminal case exists, the civil and criminal outcomes are recorded separately, because they resolve on different standards of proof.

This matter is at the allegation stage. Nothing in the regulator's filing has been proven, and the respondents are entitled to the presumption that it has not been. This page will be updated if the matter is resolved, dismissed or withdrawn.

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.

• Paid stock promotion — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2020-10-06 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.

Related actions

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

Record added September 8, 2026. If this matter has since resolved, been withdrawn or been dismissed, we want to know: submit a correction.