SEC v. Gregory Lemelson, Lemelson Capital Management, LLC, and The Amvona Fund (short and distort, 2021)

Judgment entered

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In November 2021 the SEC reported that a Boston federal jury had found hedge fund adviser Gregory Lemelson and Lemelson Capital Management liable for fraud, concluding they made false statements about Ligand Pharmaceuticals to push its stock down after taking a short position, for more than $1.3 million in profit. The court was to decide remedies later; The Amvona Fund was a relief defendant.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

—

Disgorgement

—

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

—

Alleged gain

$1.3m

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 Securities and Exchange Commission announced this verdict on November 8, 2021 as litigation release LR-25258, in SEC v. Lemelson, No. 18-civ-11926 in the District of Massachusetts, filed September 12, 2018. The defendants are Gregory Lemelson and Lemelson Capital Management LLC, with The Amvona Fund named as a relief defendant to recover gains it received (1 individual, 2 entities listed).

On November 5, 2021 the jury found Lemelson and his firm liable under Section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5. The SEC's trial evidence was that after taking a short position in Ligand through his hedge fund Lemelson made false statements to shake confidence in the company and lower its price, including that its investor relations firm agreed its most profitable drug was becoming obsolete and that Ligand had entered a sham transaction with an unaudited shell to pad its balance sheet, and that he boasted of a "multi-month battle" to bring the stock down. The SEC alleged illegal profits of more than $1.3 million.

The record shows a verdict, not a full judgment: the release says the court would set remedies later, so no penalty or disgorgement is recorded. An earlier version showed the matter as only filed.

For the regulator's own account of the facts, read the primary document linked above.

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.

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Timeline

1. 2021-11-08 Litigation release published

Primary documents

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• SEC litigation release

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.

Same matter

The library links these 3 records because they appear to concern one matter: the same lead defendant, an overlapping technique tag and close filing dates, or a shared court docket or a release that cites the other. Records are listed by date filed.

This grouping is the library's, made by matching names, techniques, dates and citations when the site is built. It is not the regulator's or a court's determination that the records are one case, and it errs towards missing a link rather than making a false one.

Related actions

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

Record added September 20, 2026. submit a correction.