Owner
Post by Franko10 ™ on Oct 26, 2005 10:59:32 GMT -5
CMKM Draws Curtain On Its Life As Public Company
10/26/2005
Dow Jones News Services
(Copyright © 2005 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)
By Carol S. Remond
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Struggling mineral exploration company CMKM Diamonds Inc. (CMKX) has ended its fight to reverse a decision by the Securities and Exchange Commission to revoke the registration of its stock.
An administrative judge ruled in July that the SEC could deregister the shares of CMKM Diamonds because the company failed to file annual and quarterly financial reports with the SEC since 2002. The company had filed an appeal with the SEC.
CMKM Diamonds said in an SEC filing this week that "As a result of the recent events surrounding CMKM," it has withdrawn its petition for review and asked the SEC to institute the revocation.
CMKM Diamonds, a tiny Las Vegas company looking for diamonds in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, has been trading on the unregulated Pink Sheets market, where billions of CMKM Diamonds shares routinely change hands daily. CMKM Diamonds' elusive number of outstanding shares had been the topic of much speculation until earlier this year, when the company said it had some 703.5 billion shares issued and outstanding.
The SEC temporarily halted trading in CMKM Diamonds shares in March, citing questions about the "adequacy of publicly available information concerning, among other things, CMKM Diamonds' assets and liabilities, mining and other business activities, share structure and stock issuances, and corporate management."
The July 12 initial decision giving the SEC the go-ahead to deregister CMKM Diamonds stock included a laundry lists of problems with the company's financial records. It shows that CMKM failed to cooperate with an audit aiming to bring the company back into compliance with securities laws. "For example, (the accountant) was not provided documents that support CMKM Diamonds' issuance of more than $24 million in stock pursuant to an 'unknown agreement'. (The accountant) also is unsure whether CMKM Diamonds' purported acquisition of a jade collection, supposedly worth $56 million, has or has not been reversed," the order said.
The initial deregistration order also showed that CMKM continued to provide shareholders with inaccurate information even after it was first contacted by the SEC. For example, CMKM Diamonds said in March that it had relocated its executive offices to 5375 Procyon Street in Las Vegas when it fact that address was occupied only by a "hot rod" shop.
CMKM has had a cult-like following by small investors, some of whom post vociferously on several online bulletin boards. While some of these shareholders appear to have put their hopes in CMKM Diamonds' mining operations, others thought that they could profit from a short squeeze that would force investors who took bearish positions on the company's stock to cover their trades. A lawyer representing some of these shareholders attempted in vain to introduce alleged evidence that CMKM Diamonds had been the victim of illegal short selling, dubbed naked short selling, during the administrative hearing over the company's future this summer.
A spokesman for the SEC said Wednesday that the Commission received CMKM Diamonds' petition for deregistration but has yet to act on it.
CMKM Diamonds shares were recently trading at $0.0001, unchanged on a volume of more than 850 million shares.
CMKM Diamonds has been the subject of several Dow Jones Newswires "In The Money" columns that highlighted its huge daily trading volume and the lack of information surrounding the company and its mineral claims.
-By Carol S. Remond, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-2074; carol.remond@dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
10-26-05 1155ET
Copyright (c) 2005 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Copyright © 2005 Markethingych, Inc. All rights reserved. Please see our Terms of Use. Markethingych, the Markethingych logo, and BigCharts are registered trademarks of Markethingych
10/26/2005
Dow Jones News Services
(Copyright © 2005 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)
By Carol S. Remond
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Struggling mineral exploration company CMKM Diamonds Inc. (CMKX) has ended its fight to reverse a decision by the Securities and Exchange Commission to revoke the registration of its stock.
An administrative judge ruled in July that the SEC could deregister the shares of CMKM Diamonds because the company failed to file annual and quarterly financial reports with the SEC since 2002. The company had filed an appeal with the SEC.
CMKM Diamonds said in an SEC filing this week that "As a result of the recent events surrounding CMKM," it has withdrawn its petition for review and asked the SEC to institute the revocation.
CMKM Diamonds, a tiny Las Vegas company looking for diamonds in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, has been trading on the unregulated Pink Sheets market, where billions of CMKM Diamonds shares routinely change hands daily. CMKM Diamonds' elusive number of outstanding shares had been the topic of much speculation until earlier this year, when the company said it had some 703.5 billion shares issued and outstanding.
The SEC temporarily halted trading in CMKM Diamonds shares in March, citing questions about the "adequacy of publicly available information concerning, among other things, CMKM Diamonds' assets and liabilities, mining and other business activities, share structure and stock issuances, and corporate management."
The July 12 initial decision giving the SEC the go-ahead to deregister CMKM Diamonds stock included a laundry lists of problems with the company's financial records. It shows that CMKM failed to cooperate with an audit aiming to bring the company back into compliance with securities laws. "For example, (the accountant) was not provided documents that support CMKM Diamonds' issuance of more than $24 million in stock pursuant to an 'unknown agreement'. (The accountant) also is unsure whether CMKM Diamonds' purported acquisition of a jade collection, supposedly worth $56 million, has or has not been reversed," the order said.
The initial deregistration order also showed that CMKM continued to provide shareholders with inaccurate information even after it was first contacted by the SEC. For example, CMKM Diamonds said in March that it had relocated its executive offices to 5375 Procyon Street in Las Vegas when it fact that address was occupied only by a "hot rod" shop.
CMKM has had a cult-like following by small investors, some of whom post vociferously on several online bulletin boards. While some of these shareholders appear to have put their hopes in CMKM Diamonds' mining operations, others thought that they could profit from a short squeeze that would force investors who took bearish positions on the company's stock to cover their trades. A lawyer representing some of these shareholders attempted in vain to introduce alleged evidence that CMKM Diamonds had been the victim of illegal short selling, dubbed naked short selling, during the administrative hearing over the company's future this summer.
A spokesman for the SEC said Wednesday that the Commission received CMKM Diamonds' petition for deregistration but has yet to act on it.
CMKM Diamonds shares were recently trading at $0.0001, unchanged on a volume of more than 850 million shares.
CMKM Diamonds has been the subject of several Dow Jones Newswires "In The Money" columns that highlighted its huge daily trading volume and the lack of information surrounding the company and its mineral claims.
-By Carol S. Remond, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-2074; carol.remond@dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
10-26-05 1155ET
Copyright (c) 2005 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Copyright © 2005 Markethingych, Inc. All rights reserved. Please see our Terms of Use. Markethingych, the Markethingych logo, and BigCharts are registered trademarks of Markethingych
