SEC v. Phillip Cory Roberts (subpoena enforcement, 2015)

Settled

✓ Checked against the primary document on October 4, 2026. The library's summary, tags and figures for this record were compared with the regulator's own document by an AI model (Claude) following written instructions, with sampled and disputed records read a second time. No lawyer has reviewed them. A checked record can still contain errors, and checked does not mean endorsed. See how we check records or report a correction.

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In February 2015 the SEC announced that a federal court had ordered Phillip Cory Roberts to testify under an investigative subpoena in a probe of reverse mergers involving China-based operating companies; the SEC said it had not then concluded anyone violated the securities laws. The investigation ended in an administrative order of February 9, 2016, accepted on Roberts's and Bay Peak's settlement offer, with findings of unregistered broker activity, industry and penny stock bars, $114,141 disgorgement and a $10,000 penalty.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$10k

Disgorgement

$114k

Prejudgment interest

$13.9k

Total relief

$138k

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 announced this matter on February 3, 2015 as litigation release 23186. On January 7, 2015 the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ordered Roberts to appear for testimony, after he failed to comply with a subpoena issued in an investigation entitled In the Matter of BayPeak LLC, a company he wholly owns.

The release says the Commission was examining whether Roberts, BayPeak and others violated the securities laws in connection with a series of reverse mergers and financings involving shells and China-based operating companies, and that it had not concluded anyone had. When this release was issued no violation had been charged or found, so the record carries no technique tag, and it recorded only the subpoena enforcement.

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.

Outcome. The release described the investigation as In the Matter of BayPeak LLC. A later SEC proceeding against Roberts and Bay Peak, LLC (File No. 3-16888) was instituted on October 8, 2015 and ended in an Order Making Findings and Imposing Remedial Sanctions dated February 9, 2016, accepted on the respondents' Offer of Settlement, without admitting or denying the findings. We connect it to this record because it concerns the same respondent, the same company and the same China reverse-merger business; the order itself does not mention the subpoena case. It finds that Roberts and Bay Peak, which were never registered, took part in at least nine financings or reverse mergers involving Chinese companies and acted as unregistered brokers. It orders them to cease and desist from Exchange Act section 15(a)(1) violations, bars Roberts from association with brokers, dealers and investment advisers and from penny stock offerings, with a right to reapply after five years, and requires disgorgement of $114,141 plus prejudgment interest of $13,854.88, jointly and severally, and a $10,000 penalty from Roberts. This is a settlement, not a contested finding. The record carries no technique tag, and the order's findings concern unregistered broker activity rather than any of the techniques catalogued here.

Timeline

1. 2015-02-03 Litigation release published
2. 2016-02-09 SEC order making findings and imposing sanctions on settlement (File 3-16888)

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 order, Roberts and Bay Peak, Feb. 9, 2016

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.

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.