SEC Suspends Trading in 26 Firms
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The Securities and Exchange Commission suspended trading in shares of 26 small companies, including a health website named for former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, on Wednesday because they failed to file required periodic financial reports.
The SEC began in June to halt trading in companies for delinquent reporting to protect investors from possible stock manipulation.
The agency said the companies’ failure to submit the quarterly and annual reports meant there was a lack of accurate information about them.
The SEC also said Wednesday that it began administrative proceedings against 12 of the companies to suspend or terminate their registration to issue securities.
The halts began at the start of trading Wednesday. The shares will be allowed to resume trading Dec. 15 if the companies file the required reports, provided their registration has not been revoked. Most of the companies’ shares are traded on the NASD’s OTC Bulletin Board, an electronic trading system for small, thinly traded stocks.
The company operating the site named for Koop, DrKoop.com Inc., was once worth more than $1 billion but collapsed a few years after going public. Some of its assets, notably Internet domain names, were sold in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for $186,000 to vitamin retailer Vitacost in the summer of 2002.
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