An appeals court has revived a complaint by the Securities and Exchange Commission after the agency argued it should have authority to bring a securities fraud action against oil and gas exploration company GeoDynamics Inc.
As Thomas Gorman of Dorsey and Whitney explains in a blog post, the SEC brought the action against GeoDynamics, its managing partner Jeffory D. Shields and several other business entities affiliated with Shields, alleging that the defendants raised over $5 million by selling interests in four joint ventures to 60 investors but only spent a little over $600,000 of those funds in oil and gas development while pocketing the rest for their own use.
