nuclear-news

Nuclear power company pays investors $450,000 to settle accusations of fraud

Settlement reached in nuclear project lawsuit, The Spokesman Review, By ALEX MORRELL, Associated Press, 9 April 12,  BOISE, Idaho  — The head of a company seeking to build a nuclear power plant in Idaho has agreed to pay $450,000 to resolve a lawsuit with a group of angry investors.

Shareholders of Alternate Energy Holdings Inc. in late 2010 sued the company, Chief Executive Officer Don Gillispie and Vice President Jennifer Ransom, claiming they schemed to mislead investors about their compensation and manipulated the company’s trading value.

Philip Gordon, a Boise lawyer representing the investors, said an
agreement was reached in mediation last week, calling on the company
to pay $450,000 by the end of June or face a $2 million penalty
judgment.

A federal judge must still approve the settlement.

Investors say that between 2006 and 2010, Gillispie duped them into
buying Alternate Energy stock at an artificially inflated price by
hiring stock promoters to manipulate demand for the company and then
issuing deceptive press releases touting the company’s fiscal health.

“Alternate Energy and certain of its officers and directors made
materially false and misleading statements and engaged in a scheme to
manipulate and artificially inflate the market price,” the
shareholders’ lawyers wrote in the complaint.

They also allege that while Gillispie was working to swell the stock
price, he and Ransom were secretly unloading their own shares for a
profit……
Accusations of fraud against the company were first made public when
the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a lawsuit in December
2010.

Among the allegations, SEC attorneys claim company executives
conspired to falsely state in marketing promotions that the project
was “fully funded”; Ransom hid $675,000 in stock sales; Ransom and
Gillispie misled shareholders about their pay; and double-dipped to
recoup $145,000 in personal expenses, including stays at Las Vegas’
Bellagio Hotel & Casino……   The company received clearance last
summer from Payette County to build a nuclear power plant.
http://www.spokesman.com/blogs/boise/2012/apr/09/ap-purported-idaho-nuke-plant-developer-pay-450k-settle-angry-investors/

April 11, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Legal, USA