The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission has obtained a federal court order against William D.
The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission has obtained a federal court order against William D. Perkins of Utah and Tax Accounting Office, Perkins’ private bookkeeping service, for more than USD2m in an anti-fraud action brought by the CFTC in 2006.
The CFTC action alleged that Perkins fraudulently solicited USD3.4m from investors in a commodity pool he operated under the name Universe Capital Appreciation.
The order by US district judge Robert B. Kugler of the District of New Jersey requires Perkins to repay USD1.6m to investors and a civil monetary penalty of USD354,462, and prohibits Perkins from engaging in any business activities related to commodity futures or options trading.
The court also ordered relief defendant TAO to repay USD76,000 of investor money in which TAO had no legitimate interest.
In the opinion, Judge Kugler found that Perkins was reckless to solicit funds for his commodity pool without making a reasonable inquiry into the validity of representations that third parties made regarding the performance of the ‘superfund’, especially where Perkins had personal experience in three previous failed high yield investment schemes with one of the parties in which they had lost over USD2m of participant funds.
The CFTC complaint alleged that Perkins touted Universe Capital Appreciation as a way for investors with less than USD100,000 to participate in a so-called ‘superfund’ that Perkins claimed was making ‘astonishing’ profits of approximately 100 per cent annually trading financial futures contracts.
In fact, the CFTC complaint alleged that the ‘superfund’ was itself a massive fraud that was the subject of other CFTC actions resulting in over USD45m in judgments.
