U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Litigation Release No. 25902 / November 22, 2023
Accounting and Auditing Enforcement No. 4474 / November 22, 2023
Securities and Exchange Commission v. SAExploration Holdings, Inc., et al., No. 20-CV-08423 (S.D.N.Y. filed Oct. 8, 2020)
SEC Obtains Final Judgment Against Former Executive For His Role in $100 Million Accounting Fraud
On November 15, 2023, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York entered the final judgment against Brian A. Beatty for his role in a multi-year accounting fraud that occurred while he was CEO and COO of Houston-based seismic data company SAExploration Holdings, Inc. (SAE). The SEC’s amended complaint alleges that Beatty and three other former SAE executives falsely inflated the revenue of SAE by approximately $100 million and concealed their theft of millions of dollars from the company.
According to the SEC’s amended complaint, Beatty and his co-defendants caused SAE to file materially false and misleading public statements after SAE entered into a series of seismic data acquisition contracts totaling approximately $140 million with a purportedly unrelated Alaska-based company that was, in fact, controlled by two of his co-defendants. The amended complaint alleges that SAE improperly recorded approximately $100 million in revenue in light of the Alaskan company’s inability to pay and the SAE executives’ control of the company. As also alleged, Beatty and his co-defendants misappropriated $12 million from SAE and routed approximately half of those funds back to SAE to create the false impression that the related Alaskan company was actually paying SAE for seismic data. The co-defendants allegedly kept the remainder of the misappropriated funds for themselves.
Without denying the SEC’s allegations, Beatty consented to the entry of a final judgment permanently enjoining him from violating Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933; Sections 10(b), 13(a), 13(b)(2)(A), 13(b)(2)(B), and 13(b)(5) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934; Rules 10b-5, 12b-20, 13a-1, 13a-11, 13a-13, 13b2-1, 13b2-2, and 13a-14 thereunder; and Section 304(a) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (“SOX”). The final judgment also orders Beatty to pay $219,940 in disgorgement plus $41,763 in prejudgment interest, for a total of $261,703. Beatty was also ordered to reimburse SAE $441,995 pursuant to Section 304(a) of the SOX.
The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York entered a final consent judgment against SAE on December 17, 2020.
The SEC’s ongoing litigation against other defendants is being conducted by Peter Lallas, Dean Conway, and Yael Berger, and supervised by James Connor.