The Securities and Exchange Commission this week filed fraud charges against a second defendant in connection with a scheme to manipulate the price of Fitbit securities through false regulatory filings.
According to the SEC’s complaint, Mark Burns purchased Fitbit call options just minutes before he and his co-conspirator, Robert Murray, filed a fake tender offer on the SEC’s EDGAR system purporting to acquire Fitbit’s shares at a substantial premium. The SEC charged Murray last year, and he was recently sentenced to prison in a parallel criminal case.
