PANews October 11 news: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed a lawsuit against Linqto founder William Sarris and former executive Joseph Endoso. According to the SEC's complaint, at least during the period from 2021 to 2024, a subsidiary of Linqto sold more than $430 million worth of special purpose vehicle (SPV) interests to retail investors, and these vehicles held interests in private companies.
During this period, Sarris and Endoso are alleged to have misled and defrauded investors by: (i) falsely claiming that Linqto's pricing reflected current market conditions or was below market price, when in fact almost all of its products were priced above fair value; (ii) claiming that certain securities were "sold out" or "fully subscribed," when in fact Linqto still had additional shares available for sale; (iii) claiming that certain prices on the Linqto platform were automatically set by algorithms and would rise and fall dynamically based on investor demand, when in fact Linqto personnel continued to set prices manually; and (iv) telling investors that Linqto complied with federal securities laws, even though its legal counsel had informed them that Linqto's business violated federal securities regulations. The complaint also alleges that Sarris and Endoso illegally operated unregistered investment companies and illegally sold securities to non-accredited investors through Linqto's subsidiary (involving unregistered transactions).