{"id":6800,"date":"2019-01-30T07:00:15","date_gmt":"2019-01-30T13:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/?p=6800"},"modified":"2019-01-30T07:00:15","modified_gmt":"2019-01-30T13:00:15","slug":"woodbridge-and-its-ex-owner-must-pay-1b-over-alleged-ponzi-scam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/woodbridge-and-its-ex-owner-must-pay-1b-over-alleged-ponzi-scam\/","title":{"rendered":"Woodbridge and Its Ex-Owner Must Pay $1B Over Alleged Ponzi Scam"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\tA federal court has ordered the Woodbridge Group of Companies and its former CEO and owner Robert H. Shapiro to pay $1B in disgorgement and penalties for allegedly running a $1.2B Ponzi scam that victimized 8,400 retail investors, including many senior investors who ended up <a href=\"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/investor-claims\/retirement-losses\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">losing their retirement money<\/a>. Of this $1B, Woodbridge and its 281 related companies must pay $892M in disgorgement. Shapiro must disgorge $18.5M in ill-gotten gains, as well as pay $2.1 in prejudgment interest and a $100M civil penalty.<\/p>\n<p>In 2017, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sec.gov\/news\/press-release\/2019-3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) <\/a>filed charges against Woodbridge, which it called a \u201cgroup of unregistered investment companies,\u201d and other defendants. The regulator contends that Woodbridge claimed that its main business was to issue loans to third-party commercial property owners. The defendant allegedly promised investors 5-10% in interest yearly. The company\u2019s marketing materials touted an \u201cover 90% renewal rate\u201d from investors because of \u201cproven results.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The SEC said that the reality was that most of these supposed third-party borrowers were, in fact, companies that Shapiro owned. They purportedly made no income and did not pay interest on any of these supposed loans.<\/p>\n<div class=\"read_more_link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/woodbridge-and-its-ex-owner-must-pay-1b-over-alleged-ponzi-scam\/\"  title=\"Continue Reading Woodbridge and Its Ex-Owner Must Pay $1B Over Alleged Ponzi Scam\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading \u203a<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A federal court has ordered the Woodbridge Group of Companies and its former CEO and owner Robert H. Shapiro to pay $1B in disgorgement and penalties for allegedly running a $1.2B Ponzi scam that victimized 8,400 retail investors, including many senior investors who ended up losing their retirement money. Of this $1B, Woodbridge and its [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6409,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3792,3745,3760],"tags":[3269,2928,3238],"class_list":["post-6800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ponzi-scams","category-retirement-funds","category-sec-enforcement","tag-robert-shapiro","tag-woodbridge-group-of-companies","tag-woodbridge-ponzi-fraud"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Woodbridge and Its Ex-Owner Must Pay $1B Over Alleged Ponzi Scam &#8212; Investor Lawyers Blog &#8212; January 30, 2019<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Here are some of the companies, aside from Woodbridge Group of Companies, that are defendants in the SEC\u2019s Ponzi fraud case.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/woodbridge-and-its-ex-owner-must-pay-1b-over-alleged-ponzi-scam\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Woodbridge and Its Ex-Owner Must Pay $1B Over Alleged Ponzi Scam &#8212; Investor Lawyers Blog &#8212; January 30, 2019\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Here are some of the companies, aside from Woodbridge Group of Companies, that are defendants in the SEC\u2019s Ponzi fraud case.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/9.4.18.jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Shepherd Smith Edwards &amp; Kantas, LLP\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Woodbridge and Its Ex-Owner Must Pay $1B Over Alleged Ponzi Scam &#8212; Investor Lawyers Blog &#8212; January 30, 2019","description":"Here are some of the companies, aside from Woodbridge Group of Companies, that are defendants in the SEC\u2019s Ponzi fraud case.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/woodbridge-and-its-ex-owner-must-pay-1b-over-alleged-ponzi-scam\/","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_title":"Woodbridge and Its Ex-Owner Must Pay $1B Over Alleged Ponzi Scam &#8212; 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