A former private equity chief compliance officer has been fined and suspended from the industry for 12 months for filing an inaccurate Form ADV with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
David Osunkwo, former chief compliance officer of Aegis Capital and Circle One Wealth Management, agreed to pay a $30,000 fine after allegedly causing Circle One to file a misleading Form ADV in April 2011.
The document was supposed to reflect a merger between Aegis and Circle One, but the SEC alleged that the filing materially overstated the assets under management by $119 million and the total number of clients the firms had in aggregate by 1,000.
The SEC claimed Osunkwo, who was an outsourced CCO for the firms, took these figures at face value even though they were given by firm staff as estimates, and subsequently listed Circle One’s chief investment officer as a signatory certifying the ADV without confirming it with him.
“[Osunkwo] did not take sufficient steps to ascertain its accuracy,” the SEC said in its ruling.
Osunkwo agreed to pay the penalty without confirming or denying the charges.
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