The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has reportedly filed a complaint on Monday against former MoviePass executives for alleged federal securities law violations in connection with the previous iteration of the service several years ago.
According to THR & Bloomberg, the SEC complaint centers on ex-Helios and Matheson Analytics CEO Ted Farnsworth and former MoviePass CEO Mitch Lowe and states they “respectively, intentionally and repeatedly disseminated to the public materially false or misleading statements concerning MoviePass and key aspects of MoviePass’ business model.”
The reports indicate the SEC filing is seeking a permanent injunction banning the defendants from violating relevant federal securities laws, and requires them to disgorge ill-gotten profits and pay civil penalties.
Helios and Matheson Analytics, which owned MoviePass, filed for bankruptcy in 2020 and last year reached a settlement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.
The filing comes as MoviePass works toward a relaunch under the new leadership of Stacy Spikes, who bought the company out of bankruptcy. Signups for the beta program started at the beginning of September and reportedly racked up over 460,000 movie fans on their waitlist in the first 24 hours.
