SEC v. HF Foods Group Inc. (2024)
Settled
Checked against the primary document on October 3, 2026. The library's summary, tags and figures for this record were compared with the regulator's own document by an AI model (Claude) following written instructions, with sampled and disputed records read a second time. No lawyer has reviewed them. A checked record can still contain errors, and checked does not mean endorsed. See how we check records or report a correction.
In June 2024 the SEC settled with HF Foods Group over about $3.4 million misappropriated by its former chairman and CEO and false disclosures of related-party transactions, executive pay and a fictitious supplier line of credit. HF Foods agreed to a $3.9 million penalty. The 2018 reverse merger is background, not the charge.
The record
| Agency | SEC |
|---|---|
| Release number | 3-21959 |
| Date filed | 2024-06-06 |
| Date resolved | 2024-06-06 |
| Status | settled |
| Asset class | equities |
| Venue | Nasdaq |
| Criminal parallel | No |
| Defendants | HF Foods Group Inc. |
| Cited as charged or alleged | Exchange Act s.10(b) and Rule 10b-5 ; Exchange Act s.13(a) ; Securities Act s.17(a) |
| Techniques |
What was ordered
- Civil penalty
- $3.9m
- Disgorgement
- —
- Prejudgment interest
- —
- Total relief
- $3.9m
- Alleged gain
- —
What is alleged to have happened
The Securities and Exchange Commission instituted and settled this proceeding on June 6, 2024 (Securities Act release 11289), without admission or denial by HF Foods.
The order finds that from August 2018 through 2020 former chairman and CEO Zhou Min Ni, helped by former CFO Jonathan Ni, took about $3.4 million from the company through related-party transactions and otherwise, including to maintain luxury vehicles, and that before the 2018 reverse merger with a special purpose acquisition company they created a fictitious line of credit with a purported supplier to hide $7.4 million of liabilities, later converted into notes. HF Foods's filings therefore contained inaccurate financial statements and false statements on related-party dealings and executive pay, and it restated in 2023 after a board investigation.
The record carried a reverse-merger tag; the merger is mentioned only as the occasion for the concealment, so the tag is removed. HF Foods was ordered to cease and desist from the antifraud, reporting, internal-control and proxy provisions and to pay a $3,900,000 civil penalty.
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.
Timeline
Primary documents
Everything on this page derives from the documents below. Where our summary and the primary document disagree, the primary document is right.