SEC v. Armand R. Franquelin (ponzi schemes, 2014)

Judgment entered

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In 2014 an SEC administrative law judge barred Armand R. Franquelin by default, relying on a 2014 federal judgment that enjoined him from Section 5 and fraud violations and ordered $1,529,749 disgorgement and $709,662 interest.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

—

Disgorgement

$1.5m

Prejudgment interest

$710k

Total relief

$2.2m

Alleged gain

—

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

On October 22, 2014 an SEC administrative law judge barred Armand R. Franquelin from the securities industry in a default follow-on proceeding. It rests on an April 2014 default judgment in the District of Utah that enjoined him from violating Securities Act Sections 5 and 17(a), Exchange Act Sections 10(b) and 15(a) and Rule 10b-5, and ordered him to disgorge $1,529,749.28 with $709,662.19 in prejudgment interest. The underlying conduct was a Ponzi scheme in which he sold unregistered securities as an unregistered broker; he faced a parallel criminal case.

This library tags the matter as ponzi schemes and unregistered distributions, based on the conduct the document describes. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.

For the regulator's own account of the facts, read the primary document linked above. This page deliberately summarises the structured record rather than reproducing the release.

What technique is this, and how does it work?

This action is tagged with 2 techniques 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.
• Unregistered distributions — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2014-10-22 Initial decision

Primary documents

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

• Initial decision (ID-698)
• Order instituting proceedings
• Finality 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.