SEC v. Simon Piers Thurlow, Roger Fidler and others (reverse merger schemes, 2021)
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.
Checked against the primary document on October 3, 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.
In September 2021 the SEC sued Simon Thurlow, attorney Roger Fidler and others in New York over Dolat Ventures, alleging a 2016 reverse merger with a Chinese electric-car company followed by backdated documents that let convertible-debt shares be sold unregistered for about $5.7 million. A separate settled order against an attorney who wrote opinion letters carried $3,150 in disgorgement.
The record
| Agency | SEC |
|---|---|
| Release number | LR-25207 |
| Date filed | 2021-09-15 |
| Date resolved | 2021-09-15 |
| Status | filed |
| Criminal parallel | No |
| Bars imposed | penny stock bar |
| Defendants | Simon Piers Thurlow ; Roger Leon Fidler ; Richard Oravec ; Bradley Fidler ; Bryce Emory Boucher ; Joseph D. Jordan ; Western Bankers Capital Inc. |
| Cited as charged or alleged | Exchange Act s.10(b) and Rule 10b-5 ; Securities Act s.17(a) ; Securities Act s.5 |
| Techniques | Reverse merger schemes |
What was ordered
- Civil penalty
- —
- Disgorgement
- —
- Prejudgment interest
- —
- Total relief
- —
- Alleged gain
- $5.7m
What is alleged to have happened
The Securities and Exchange Commission announced on September 15, 2021 (litigation release 25207) a complaint filed in the Southern District of New York against Thurlow, Roger Fidler, Oravec, Bradley Fidler, Boucher, Joseph Jordan and Jordan's company Western Bankers Capital.
The SEC alleges that in 2016 Roger Fidler, Thurlow and Oravec engineered a reverse merger between Dolat Ventures and a Chinese company said to make electric cars and batteries, then created false and backdated documents to make it look as if shares could be sold to the public without registration. Between March and December 2017 associates bought tranches of the convertible debt, converted it to shares and sold them, with proceeds of about $5.7 million, and the defendants allegedly gave attorneys false information to obtain opinion letters. It charges fraud and Sections 5(a) and 5(c) and seeks injunctions, disgorgement, penalties and penny-stock bars. These are allegations.
In a separate administrative proceeding attorney Charles Lloyd settled for issuing opinion letters despite red flags, with $3,150 disgorgement, $501 interest and a $40,000 penalty. That is a different respondent, so the $3,150 and the settled status on this record are cleared. This library tags the matter as reverse merger schemes.
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.
- Reverse merger schemes — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.
Timeline
- 2021-09-15 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.
Related actions
Other actions in the library sharing at least one technique tag with this one.
| Action | Agency | Filed | Technique | Penalty | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SEC v. Brian Quinn and David Skriloff (Environmental Packaging, 2024) | SEC | 2024-10-18 | Reverse Merger Schemes , Undisclosed Control Blocks | $461k | judgment |
| SEC v. Meta Materials, Inc. ( and others (engineered short squeeze, 2024) | SEC | 2024-06-25 | Engineered Short Squeeze , Reverse Merger Schemes | $1m | settled |
| SEC v. Darren Ofsink and Michael T. Morris (CodeSmart, 2023) | SEC | 2023-04-03 | Reverse Merger Schemes , Undisclosed Control Blocks +1 | — | judgment |
| SEC v. James T. Patten, Peter L. Coker Sr. and Peter L. Coker Jr. (reverse merger schemes, 2022) | SEC | 2022-09-27 | Reverse Merger Schemes , Price Manipulation | — | filed |
| SEC v. Charles Parkinson Lloyd (reverse merger schemes, 2021) | SEC | 2021-09-15 | Reverse Merger Schemes , Unregistered Distributions | $40k | settled |
| SEC v. Peter DiChiara (reverse merger schemes, 2020) | SEC | 2020-09-03 | Reverse Merger Schemes , Undisclosed Control Blocks | $40k | settled |