SEC v. Anthony Coronati and Bidtoask LLC (ponzi schemes, 2014)

Settled

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In October 2014 the SEC settled with Anthony Coronati and Bidtoask LLC over fraudulent offerings that raised more than $2 million from 2009 to 2013, ordering $292,646.36 of disgorgement, $7,353.64 of interest and a $100,000 penalty.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$100k

Disgorgement

$293k

Prejudgment interest

$7.4k

Total relief

$400k

Alleged gain

$1.8m

A dash means the release did not state a figure we could extract, not that the figure is zero. Penalty and disgorgement are stored separately so aggregates across the library do not double-count the same dollars.

What is alleged to have happened

The order finds that Coronati posed as adviser to a hedge fund that did not exist and took membership interests in Bidtoask for pre-IPO technology investments while hiding large fees, misappropriating more than $400,000, and that on occasion he used money from one offering to repay investors in another in Ponzi-like fashion. He also sent an investor a false account statement showing a $120,000 position.

The record carried the interest and penalty but omitted the disgorgement, and showed the status as judgment; the Commission accepted the respondents' offer of settlement.

This library tags the matter as ponzi schemes because the document describes money from later investors being used to pay earlier ones. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.

What technique is this, and how does it work?

This action is tagged with one technique in our taxonomy. The tagging is ours: regulators charge statutory provisions, not technique names, so the mapping is an editorial judgement described in our editorial policy.

• Ponzi schemes — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2014-10-17 Administrative proceeding instituted (cease-and-desist)

Primary documents

Everything on this page derives from the documents below. Where our summary and the primary document disagree, the primary document is right.

• SEC order

The linked release is a work of the United States government and is not subject to copyright. Our summary and narrative above are our own writing.

Related actions

Other actions in the library sharing at least one technique tag with this one.

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.