Nanoviricides (NNVC), a hype-drenched bio-dreck reverse merged into a shell called, no joke, Edot.com, is located in leafy New Haven, CT. Run by septugenarian Eugene Seymour, and recently debunked by reporter Teri Buhl (see here and here), NNVC has been touted in the past by the memorable Patrick Cox, and currently by the disgraced Tobin Smith, fired by FOX (see here) over his pumping of Petrosonic Energy (PSON).

Patrick, as many may remember, was one of the Agora stable of “writers”. So it was not a huge surprise to find a reference to Agora in NNVC’s SEC filings.

The text of the filing, however, was a huge surprise. From the July 8, 2013 8K:

On July 2, 2013, the Registrant provided certain undisclosed information to Agora Financial, LLC (“Agora”) regarding testing of the Registrant’s nanoviricides products by Public Health England (PHE). While an Agora analyst had agreed not to disseminate the information until it was released by the Registrant, the analyst inadvertently released a report which disseminated certain of the content to its readers. The Registrant released the relevant information contained in a press release dated July 8, 2013, after it received approval for the release from PHE. The Press Release is attached and furnished as Exhibit 99.1 to this Form 8-K and is incorporated herein by reference.

NNVC (“tipper”) revealed information (“tipped”) to the unnamed Agora analyst (“tippee”) on the 2nd of July, and then released the same information to the public on the 8th of July. 6 days later. In the interim Agora (“tippee”) released some of this information (“tipped”) to its readers.

In cases of leaks of information, Regulation FD states that a company must promptly rectify the situation.

Rule 101(d) defined “promptly” to mean “as soon as reasonably practicable” (but no later than 24 hours) after a senior official of the issuer learns of the disclosure and knows (or is reckless in not knowing) that the information disclosed was both material and non-public. “Senior official” was defined in the proposal as any executive officer of the issuer, any director of the issuer, any investor relations officer or public relations officer, or any employee possessing equivalent functions.

It is clear that NNVC management has some explaining to do. 24 hours after July 2nd is NOT July 8th. This 8k needed to be issued on Wednesday the 3rd of July, not the 8th of July.

And just who was the contact at Agora that received the information? Could it be the esteemed Mr. Cox? Patrick left Agora sometime midyear 2013 to launch a new tout sheet with John Maudlin called “Transformational Technology Alert“, coincidence or did it just get a little too hot in the Agora kitchen?

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