The Helium Issuer Nova Labs agrees to pay SEC $ 200K to resolve the allegations that it lied to investors about brand partnerships
Nova Labs, the parent company behind the Helium Blockchain, has agreed to pay the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) $ 200,000 to improve civilian fraudulent regulator charges filed against the firm in January, a court filing said on Thursday.
Without confessing or denying any mistake, Nova Labs will pay for the fine to be resolved Raised $ 200 million in fresh capital with a $ 1 billion appreciation. In its complaint, the SEC has accused the Nova Labs of lying to prospective investors about a number of customers with big business names-including Nestle, Salesforce and Lime-claimed to use Helium technology.
The SEC has accused the NOVA labs of repeating the nature of its relationships with these three corporations to secure investments, touting them as customers and “users” of its tech. According to The complaintThe actual contact with the Nova Labs with Lime, Salesforce and Nestle was limited and mainly occurred before the launch of the Helium Network in mid-2019.
For example, according to the SEC, the extent of Nestle’s relationship with the Nova Labs is a small scale test of some of the business company hardware components that deliver water in 2018, before the Nova Labs is even in the crypto business. Its relevance to the Lime Scooter company is limited to the two in-person demonstrations of Nova Labs hardware components to one audience of only two lime employees-at least one of them left the company after a while-in early 2019, SEC said.
Both Nestle and Lime later sent Nova Labs to stop at-desist orders, according to the SEC, who threatened the company with legal action if it continued to use their trademarks and otherwise it was said to have a constant relationship with them, the complaint allegedly.
As part of the NOVA LABS negotiation agreement with the SEC, the regulator agreed to overthrow two other claims that the company had violated federal security laws, including the sale of its three tokens -the Helium Network token (HNT), the Helium Mobile Network Token (Mobile) and the Helium IOT Network Token (IOT) -SECT Arrangement Agreement. Those claims fell prejudice, meaning that the SEC is prohibited from carrying a case in the future under the same allegations.
The Nova Labs celebrated the refinement in a Thursday blog post, calling it a “main win for Helium and the People’s Network.”
“Through this dismissal, we can certainly say that all the compatible helium hotspots and the distribution of HNT, IOT and mobile token via helium network are not security,” the blog post said. “The outcome establishes that the sale of hardware and distribution of tokens for network growth does not automatically make Security in the SEC’s eye.”
The blog post did not mention the $ 200,000 negotiation or the claim that nonva labs were misleading investors.
When reached for the comment, Nova Labs Chief Legal Officer Sarah Aberg told CoinDesk that while the regulating agreement prohibits the company from confessing or denial of claims, “we can point out that, both at the time of those statements and now, the use of data on the helium network is always available to the public.”
The regulating agreement, filed in the Southern District of New York (SDNY) on Thursday, was subject to the approved of a federal judge.
