finance.lycos.com/home/news/...?symbols=BB:HRCT&story=34347062LOS ANGELES, May 29 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The Hartcourt Companies, Inc. (BB:HRCT, Frankfurt:
900009),
www.hartcourt.com , today announced that its newly acquired subsidiaries has won key strategic contracts to ensure steady growth amid SARS epidemic.
HuaQing, Shanghai' based leading IT product marketer and distributor in Eastern China, has won a contract to supply additional 768 LCD flat-panel monitors and 160 PDP 42 inch display units to Shanghai's Metro railway system for use in public communication and outdoor advertising. The contract, worth RMB$5.2 Million, to be used on the Route Two of the Shanghai Metro is in addition to the 900 LCD flat-panel monitors previously sold by HuaQing to be used on the Metro Route One. The Metro Route Two, with 19KM in length, links Shanghai downtown with the Pudong Development Zone and carries average 2mil passengers per days. This contract demonstrates HuaQing's relationship with government sectors and ability to win additional contracts with Shanghai Metro as it commits to extend its Metro network during the next few years.
NewHuaSun, Guangzhou based leading IT product marketer and distributor in Southern China, has signed a contract with China's leading software developer and system integrator, SunTek Technology (A Share listed 600728) (
www.suntektech.com ), to supply exclusively computer monitors to all SunTek corporate customers. The contract worth about RMB30mil per year brings about RMB12mil sales to NewHuaSun in the first 5 months of 2003 amid the SARS epidemic impact.
Mr. David Chen, Hartcourt's President and CEO, comments, "We are very pleased that our newly acquired subsidaries in both Eastern China and Southern China, 2 of most important economic areas in China has shown strong growth and relentless push into business and government sectors. Together with our partners, we will be continuously seeking more innovative ways to grow our businesses, to count balance the effect SARS has on the Chinese economy. As the SARS has being put under control and travel restrictions lifted, we will be on the road again to seek additional acquisition targets."
www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/comp18088.htmSUMMARY
1. The Commission brings this civil action against eight individuals and four entities for their conduct between April 1999 and July 2000 relating to the price manipulation, unregistered sales, unreported stock ownership and touting of securities issued by BluePoint Linux Software Corporation ("BluePoint"), a U.S. corporation formerly named MAS Acquisition XI Corporation ("MAS").
2. Aaron Tsai ("Tsai") formed MAS as a shell corporation in 1996. From then through August 1999, Tsai purported to transfer ownership of many of MAS's outstanding shares of common stock to approximately thirty shareholders. These transfers were shams; the shareholders were nominees, and Tsai retained control of the stock during all relevant times. Tsai's intent was to create the appearance that the nominee shares could later be sold without limitation and without a registration statement in effect with the Commission.
3. From late 1999 through early 2000, Tsai, Michael Markow and his company, Global Guarantee Corporation (collectively, "Markow"), Francois Goelo ("Goelo"), and Yongzhi Yang and his company, K&J Consulting, Ltd. (collectively, "Yang"), arranged for MAS to acquire a Chinese company that purportedly had developed a Chinese version of the Linux computer operating system. Upon the acquisition in February 2000, the Chinese Linux company became a subsidiary of MAS, which changed its name to BluePoint.
4. Markow, Goelo, Yang, and Ke Luo, and his company, M&M Management, Ltd. (collectively, "Luo"), placed 3.75 million shares they bought from Tsai in their names, the names of entities they controlled, and the names of their relatives.
5. Sierra Brokerage Services, Inc. ("Sierra"), its president, Jeffrey Richardson ("Richardson") and its trader, Richard Geiger ("Geiger") (collectively, the "Broker-dealer
Defendants") participated in the scheme to manipulate the price of BluePoint shares.
6. At all relevant times, Markow, Goelo, Yang and Luo (collectively, the "Promoter Defendants") acted as a group and controlled a vast majority of the free-trading shares, or float, of BluePoint in order to manipulate the price of BluePoint shares. When BluePoint stock began trading publicly on March 6, 2000, the Broker-dealer Defendants facilitated the scheme by creating artificial trading activity in BluePoint stock that enabled the Promoter Defendants to complete the scheme. The Promoter Defendants and Broker-dealer Defendants engaged in trading of BluePoint shares at artificially high prices that were hundreds of times more than what the Promoter Defendants had paid for less than three weeks earlier.
7. Tsai made false filings with the Commission when he failed to disclose his true ownership of the shares and the subsequent sale of those shares to the Promoter Defendants. Although the Promoter Defendants had collectively acquired nearly 20% of BluePoint's 20 million outstanding shares and over 90% of the publicly traded shares, they never reported their ownership to the Commission in any filing as required under the federal securities laws.
8. On March 6, 2000 and after, Jerome Armstrong ("Armstrong") promoted BluePoint on the Raging Bull internet site, which carried hundreds of posts about BluePoint. Armstrong received undisclosed compensation from Markow and Goelo in return for his posts.
9. In the weeks and months after BluePoint started trading, BluePoint's price and volume steadily declined from its all-time high of $21. Nonetheless, the Promoter Defendants continued to sell at a profit, having paid Tsai only pennies for their shares. The Promoter Defendants never reported any changes in ownership when they sold their BluePoint shares in any filings with the Commission.
