News Story

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced on Oct. 28, 2009 that it filed an emergency action to halt an ongoing fraud involving the sale of stock in Amante Corporation by Amante, Commonwealth Capital Management, Inc., (Commonwealth) a boiler room operation located at Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

Acting on the Commission's request for emergency relief, on October 28, 2009, Judge James I. Cohn of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida issued temporary restraining orders, asset freezes, and other relief against the defendants.

The Commission's complaint alleges that, from at least at least May 2008 to the present, Amante, Commonwealth raised at least $2.3 million from investors by offering and selling Amante common stock in unregistered transactions. According to the complaint, defendants told investors that an initial public offering (IPO) of Amante's stock was imminent, and that once the stock began trading publicly, the price per share could increase as much as one hundred times.

These claims were false or misleading because Amante had not filed a registration statement or conducted any other necessary steps to even begin that process. In addition, there was no basis for the defendants' statements about the high returns investors would realize on their investment in Amante stock because those statements were predicated on a fictitious IPO and Amante has no current or future business prospects to support such an increase in its stock price.

The complaint also alleges that Commonwealth acted as an unregistered broker-dealer in selling Amante shares to investors. The Court's October 28 Order provides that the temporary restraining order and asset freeze would remain in effect until Nov. 6, 2009, at which time the Court scheduled a hearing on the Commission's motion for a preliminary injunction.