Two former executives behind an allegedly fraudulent initial coin offering (ICO) that was stopped by the Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this year have been ordered in federal court to pay nearly $2.7 million and prohibited from serving as officers or directors of public companies or participating in future offerings of digital securities.
AriseBank’s then-CEO Jared Rice and then-COO Stanley Ford were accused of offering and selling unregistered investments in their purported AriseCoin cryptocurrency by depicting AriseBank as a first-of-its-kind decentralized bank offering a variety of services to retail investors.
To settle the SEC’s charges, Rice and Ford agreed to be held jointly and severally liable for $2,259,543 in disgorgement plus $68,423 in prejudgment interest, and each must pay a $184,767 penalty. They also agreed to lifetime bars from serving as officers and directors of public companies and participating in digital securities offerings, and permanent prohibitions against violating the antifraud and registration provisions of the federal securities laws.