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November 29, 2000 Asensio responds to settlement of alleged violations of technical NASD compliance |
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On October 20, 2000 Manuel P. Asensio and Asensio & Company, Inc. (collectively referred to as "Asensio") agreed to settle a series of alleged non-customer, non-trading related rule violations of NASD hyper-technical compliance regulations. Asensio agreed to the settlements without admitting or denying that any of the technical compliance rule violations actually occurred to avoid further legal expenses and the deviation of staff time to the 24 month long inquiry. Neither Asensio, nor any of its clients, has ever been bought-in on any short sale nor did the NASD/AMEX inquiry find a single short sell where Asensio or any of its clients failed to borrow any shares that were sold short or executed any short sale on a down-tick. Asensio & Company and its employees have never received a single customer complaint in the firm’s entire history. Neither Mr. Asensio, Asensio & Company, Inc.’s Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, nor any of Asensio’s employees has ever received a customer complaint in their entire careers. Asensio has published research reports disclosing that at least three leaders of the AMEX were involved in a fraudulent stock promotion. Asensio has also disclosed that the AMEX has recently listed a series of shell companies, including several Vancouver stock promotions, that failed to meet the AMEX’s own minimum listing requirements. Finally, Asensio has publicly disclosed that some of these recent irregular AMEX listings were involved in a series of highly questionable transactions involving automatic purchases of these AMEX listed stock promotions by Russell Index mutual funds, which led to the incurrance of large losses by the funds. These reports led to the initiation of an investigation of the AMEX by United States Representative John D. Dingell, Ranking Member of the Committee on Commerce. These letters are available on the Internet at www.house.gov/commerce_democrats/ Asensio believes that the NASD/AMEX inquiry was a direct result of its public criticism of the AMEX’s failure to de-list a fraudulent stock promotion that involved its leaders, its failure to regulate and sanction AMEX members involved with that fraudulent stock promotion and the AMEX’s listing of shell companies that failed to meet its own listing requirements. |
