Quote from: Puppet on September 28, 2013, 10:05:29 AM

Quote from: Ytterbium on September 28, 2013, 09:55:30 AM

But it isn't the case that everyone in the world needs to follow US law.

As you have been told a million times, it doesnt matter where the company issuing the stock is incorporated (afaik labcoin isnt even incorporated). You have to follow US law when soliciting funds for unregistered securities from (unsophisticated) US citizens in the US. Even less doubt if the promoter/agent is a US citizen living in the US.

What the securities are about is of no importance, you cant promote and sell unregistered Nigerian stocks in the US, just because Nigerian law would allow it.

There is a reason Burnside at some point planned to deny access to his exchange for US citizens, but you seem to daft to grasp why.

Burnside has to follow US law because he lives in the US, dumbass.

Also, Nigeria actually has very strict banking regulation compared to other countries, and 419 scams have always been illegal there, that's why they're called 419s, that's the legal code they violate. The government there prosecutes people who do it all the time. (They're actually rather embarrassed about this reputation they've earned)

If you sold shares in a scam stock in Nigeria, you'd be prosecuted, if caught. But the reason you'd be prosecuted is because you would have broken Nigerian law, not because you broke US law.

If labcoin is a total scam, then obviously the people behind face serious legal consiquences. This would be true if they were based in Nigeria, Taiwan, Italy, Cyprus, wherever. On the other hand, if they're not a scam then the only relevant issue is the legality of the securities. For example, it appears that it's not illegal in Belize.

That issue applies equally to all stocks based outside of the US like ASICMiner, NEOBEE and so on. If the US government is actually going to try to go after people outside the US simply for "violating" SEC regulations then those companies are also at risk.

Finally, the job of the SEC is to protect shareholders. That means that if they go after these people, they would try to recover the value that shareholders lost. Also all they do is levy fines, usually pretty small ones. The Pirateat40 case was the FBI, not the SEC, because that was a scam - not a violation of securities regulation