Texas Company and its President Agree to Settle Oil-and-Gas Offering Fraud

A Texas company and its president have agreed to pay nearly $300,000 to settle charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission related to an oil-and-gas offering fraud. The SEC also charged two senior salespeople as unregistered brokers in the transactions underlying the fraud.

According to the complaint, filed on July 24, 2017 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, Austin-based Petroforce Energy, LLC and its founder and president, William Veasey, raised nearly $3.9 million from approximately 80 investors in four fraudulent oil-and-gas offerings. The SEC alleges that Petroforce and Veasey provided investors with offering documents and other materials that contained false and misleading statements about the investments. The documents allegedly misrepresented the nature and extent of certain operational problems that affected an early offering and understated drilling costs and overstated the profitability of the wells. The SEC also alleges that the offering materials misstated the timing and nature of tax benefits associated with investing in the offerings.

The SEC's investigation was conducted by Michael Jackman and Ty S. Martinez with assistance from Jennifer Brandt.

More information is available here.