The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has ordered PawisngPinoy Online Investment, an unregistered entity claiming to be in rice trading, construction, medical supplies and real estate businesses, to stop its illegal investment-taking activities.
PawisngPinoy was using a fake certification to make it appear it had been authorized by the SEC to solicit investments from the public, the corporate watchdog said in a press statement.
SEC noted PawisngPinoy had never been registered as a corporation or partnership. Accordingly, it cannot secure a secondary license needed for the issuance of securities for public offering, pursuant to the Securities Regulation Code.
In an order dated March 1, the SEC en banc directed PawisngPinoy to immediately cease and desist from engaging in the unlawful solicitation, offering and/or sale of securities.
“[T]his Commission finds, and so holds, that PawisngPinoy is unlawfully engaged in the sale and/or offer of unregistered securities in the form of investment contract, because it has no license to carry out the same,” the SEC en banc held.
‘Operates as a fraud’
The order added that “the act of PawisngPinoy in selling/offering unregistered securities operates as a fraud to the public which, if unrestrained, will likely cause grave or irreparable injury or prejudice to the investing public.”
The SEC directed PawisngPnoy, its owners, operators, representatives, agents and promoters to cease their presence online. They were likewise prohibited from transacting any business involving funds in its depository banks and from transferring, disposing or conveying any related assets to ensure the preservation of the assets of investors.
The corporate watchdog issued the cease and desist order after its Enforcement and Investor Protection Department (EIPD) found that PawisngPinoy has been soliciting from the public investments ranging from P2,000 to P10,000, in exchange for a guaranteed passive income of P4,500 to P20,500 within five to six days. The group has also been promising investors P500 to P2,500 in bonuses.
Investments received from the public would allegedly be used for PawisngPinoy’s rice trading business, construction and medical supplies distribution and real estate operations, but the EIPD found these to be nonexistent.
The money collected were instead “utilized to satisfy and pay the guaranteed returns of its existing investors,” the order read. INQ