SEC v. Steven Fishoff, et al. (insider trading, 2016)

Judgment entered

✓ 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 2016 the SEC sued Steven Fishoff and three others over insider trading ahead of secondary offerings, with parallel criminal cases. The court entered a partial final judgment against Fishoff and his companies in April 2020, and on May 5, 2026 the SEC told the court it was withdrawing its monetary relief requests against them, which it said resolved all issues in the case.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

—

Disgorgement

—

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

—

Alleged gain

$4.4m

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 24, 2016 as release LR-23474. The respondents named are Steven Fishoff, Steven Costantin, Ronald Chernin and Paul Petrello (4 individuals, 0 entities).

This library tags the matter as insider trading, 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 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.

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.

A letter filed by the SEC in the District of New Jersey on May 5, 2026 reports that the Court entered a partial final judgment on April 7, 2020 enjoining Fishoff, Featherwood Capital, Inc. and JSF Investment Capital Inc. from the violations charged, leaving disgorgement and penalties to a later motion. The SEC then withdrew its requests for monetary relief against those three defendants and stated that all issues in the case were fully resolved, so no disgorgement or penalty is recorded for them. The date used here is the date of that letter. The letter does not itself state the monetary outcome for the other individuals named in the complaint (Costantin, Chernin and Petrello), who an SEC release says pleaded guilty and agreed to partial settlements with amounts to be set later; this page has not checked those amounts. Checked on 2026-10-04.

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.

• Insider trading — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2016-02-24 Litigation release published
2. 2020-04-07 Partial final judgment entered against Fishoff and two companies (as described in the SEC's May 2026 letter)
3. 2026-05-05 SEC withdraws monetary relief requests; reports all issues resolved

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 letter to the court (May 5, 2026)

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 3 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.