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by Mike Caswell

Benjamin Ballout, the Michigan resident banned and fined by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for the Enerkon Solar International Inc. pump-and-dump, has lost his appeal. The SEC claimed that Mr. Ballout was part of a scheme in which Enerkon touted $320-million in non-existent sales from a Canadian-made test for COVID-19. (All figures are in U.S. dollars.) The device could supposedly test for the virus within 15 seconds.

The loss for Mr. Ballout is contained in a decision handed down by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit on Thursday, Oct. 29. Three appeal judges have upheld the sanctions against Mr. Ballout, which included a permanent penny stock ban and a $460,928 fine. In handing down the decision, the appeal judges concluded that Mr. Ballout "does not meaningfully challenge" findings that established his securities laws violations.

The ruling is a loss for Mr. Ballout, who contended that the penalties against him should be overturned because of the way the SEC conducted its investigation. He claimed that an organization called Radio Free Europe was responsible for initiating the case. As he saw things, he should not be liable for an SEC investigation that was based on reporting by an outside agency.

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