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by Mike Caswell

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has won a 10-year ban against Robert Hillis Miller, a former Vancouverite charged for the improper sale of millions of shares in an OTC Markets listing. The SEC claimed that Mr. Miller ran a scheme in which he held shares of Abakan Inc., a purported materials coating company, through front companies in Uruguay. He secretly sold $1.39-million worth of shares in unregistered offerings, the SEC said. (All figures are in U.S. dollars.)

The ban for Mr. Miller is contained in a judgment handed down on Sept. 30, 2024, in federal court in Maryland. The decision bans Mr. Miller from penny stocks and from serving as an officer or director of a public company. The judge has further ordered Mr. Miller to pay a $160,000 fine.

The ban is not a complete victory for the SEC, which had sought to bar Mr. Miller from the markets permanently. The SEC said that Mr. Miller "knowingly or with severe recklessness" violated the rules surrounding the reporting of his holdings in Abakan. "The evidence demonstrated that Mr. Miller bragged about this to his colleagues, and brazenly kept records demonstrating his control over the subject shares, but repeatedly refused to accurately disclose his holdings and transactions to shareholders," the SEC contended.

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