on september 30 the securities and exchange commission sec announced that it had charged eight cannabis stocks in a stock promotion scheme that included emerald health pharmaceuticals elegance brands inc now sway energy corp and high times holdings hthc reported debra borchardt for green market report “the sec says investors purchased 80 million of securities following the promotions the individuals received payments based on the number of securities sold” borchardt wrote the sec announced that alleged recidivist securities law violator jonathan william mikula promoted the securities of four issuers elegance brands inc emerald health pharmaceuticals inc hightimes holding corp and cloudastructure inc “without disclosing that he received compensation for the promotions” allegedly mikula promoted the securities via a newsletter issued by the firm palm beach venture while he was secretly being compensated in addition to mikula the sec’s complaint also charged christian fernandez and amit raj beri who allegedly acted as middlemen “beri in particular acted as the middle man for the cannabis companies emerald health and hightimes high times was not charged” reported borchardt beri also was listed as the ceo and cfo of elegance brands approved by the sec for a reg a offering beri made changes to the offering but did not prepare a new offering statement with the sec and those securities are now considered unregistered “at mikula’s urging and in order to facilitate the promotion elegance agreed to engage individual 1 an associate of mikula’s and pay him 3 of investor funds raised through the promotion and provide him with 89 million shares of elegance’s stock which amounted to 10 of the company’s outstanding stock” per the complaint according to the sec elegance has agreed to pay a penalty of 776932 beri has agreed to pay disgorgement of 96031496 prejudgment interest of 3897924 a penalty of 207183 entering a 10year bar and “a conductbased injunction prohibiting him from engaging in certain promotional activities” meanwhile emerald health allegedly made 30 million in the stock promotion campaign emerald health’s ceo james demesa is accused of omissions in the filings on the promotion and related payments emerald health noted that palm beach venture recommended the company “as an attractive investment opportunity” without disclosing that this was a paidfor recommendation emerald health has agreed to pay a penalty of 517955 demesa has agreed to pay a penalty of 103591 and agreed to a fiveyear bar from serving as an officer and director and dhillon has agreed to a permanent bar from acting as an officer and director high times was promoted by palm beach venture between april 2020 and march 2021 “hightimes ultimately entered into an agreement to pay entity 1 a canadian entity controlled by individual 2 5 of the funds raised through the palm beach promotion  the purpose of using a canadian entity and offshore account was to conceal that payments from hightimes would go to mikula” per the complaint “high times paid 150000 for the promotion but the complaint did not state the number of securities sold through the promotion however if high times agreed to pay 5 of the securities sold and then paid the individual 150000 it could be deduced that at least 3 million was raised through this promotion high times did not respond to a request for comment” borchardt wrote