SEC Charges Founder and Chief Executive of Health Data Company for False and Misleading Statements to Investors
ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEEDING
File No. 3-20644
November 2, 2021 - The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged Michael Margiotta, the founder and chief executive of Patient Identification Platform, Inc. (Patient iP), a Rochester, New York-based health data company, for making materially false and misleading statements to investors in connection with his offer and sale of Patient iP securities to investors.
According to the SEC's order, in March 2017, Margiotta told certain prospective investors that a large clinical research organization was very interested in acquiring Patient iP and that the clinical research organization's executives had made comments to that effect. The order finds, however, that the executives had not made such comments and Margiotta was vastly overstating the clinical research organization's acquisition interest. A few months later, as stated in the order, Margiotta told investors that a number of entities were interested in starting acquisition discussions when that was not the case. As set forth in the order, Margiotta raised approximately $1,146,000 from investors based on these and other materially false and misleading statements, including $765,039 from the sale of his personal shares in Patient iP.
The SEC's order finds that Margiotta violated the antifraud provisions of Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 thereunder. Without admitting or denying the SEC's findings, Margiotta consented to an order requiring him to cease and desist from further violations of the charged provisions, and to pay disgorgement of $765,040, prejudgment interest of $92,562, and a $500,000 civil monetary penalty.
The SEC's investigation was conducted by Nicholas Karasimas and Sandeep Satwalekar and was supervised by Lara Shalov Mehraban.
Last Reviewed or Updated: Nov. 2, 2021