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Matthias Knab, Opalesque: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has denied Evan H. Katz's motion for reconsideration and modification of the settled order entered against him in September 2024, closing off a further attempt by Katz to have the sanctions reduced to a disgorgement-only outcome.
In an order dated October 22, 2026 (Securities Act Release No. 11454, Admin. Proc. File No. 3-22214), the Commission rejected Katz's request that it revisit its June 3, 2026 decision, which had denied his earlier motion to vacate the 2024 settlement.
Background: the Crawford Ventures case
The case goes back to the Crawford Ventures Absolute Return Fund, LP, a currency trading fund that, according to the SEC, raised about USD16 million from some 45 investors by the end of 2023. Katz was the fund's co-founder, chief operating officer and general counsel. The trading was run by its two co-chief investment officers, the brothers Akshay and Dev Kamboj, who had first approached Katz with an unsolicited email in May 2021, claiming average annual returns of 78.71% from 2018 to 2020 across separately managed accounts.
To support that track record, prospective investors were given an "Audit Report" and a "Performance Audit" purportedly issued by an Australian audit and consulting firm. According to the SEC, that firm had never audited the Kambojs, and the documents were forged. The SEC's settled order finds that the Kambojs forged the materials, or had them forged at their direction, had someone impersonate the Australian accountant on a call with Katz, and hid their conduct from him.
On September 27, 2024, the SEC filed scienter-based fraud charges against the Kamboj brothers in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleging violations of Section 17(a) of the Securities Act and Section 10(b) of the Exchange Act and Rule 10b-5.
On the same day, Katz settled separate administrative proceedings, without admitting or denying the findings. The order found that he violated Sections 17(a)(2) and 17(a)(3) of the Securities Act - provisions under which negligence is sufficient and no finding of scienter is required. The SEC did not find that Katz forged any documents or knew they were forged. It found instead that he failed to take reasonable steps to verify the audit materials before they were provided to investors, and that fund marketing materials cited third-party rankings and awards without appropriate disclosure, including awards a ranking service had asked the fund to stop using.
Katz was ordered to cease and desist and to pay disgorgement of USD98,542.97, prejudgment interest of USD5,397.83 and a civil penalty of USD98,542.97. When the sanctions went unpaid, the SEC obtained a judgment against him in the Eastern District of New York in April 2025.
An earlier episode: NIR Group
Crawford Ventures was not the first troubled fund vehicle connected to Katz. Around 2008, he marketed the AJW funds of Corey Ribotsky's Long Island-based NIR Group. On October 16, 2009, The Wall Street Journal reported that the NIR Group-led by manager Corey Ribotsky-barred withdrawals and moved to restructure its funds after struggling with PIPE (private investment in public equity) strategies. According to The Wall Street Journal, Katz sent investors a letter in October 2008 touting "large positive absolute returns." The funds stopped allowing withdrawals soon afterwards.
In September 2011, the SEC charged Ribotsky and NIR Group with fraud in federal court in Brooklyn. It alleged that Ribotsky misled investors about how quickly the funds' PIPE investments in microcap companies could be liquidated, misappropriated more than USD1 million in client assets, and in late 2008 sold USD43.2 million of AJW fund assets to a buyer that never paid, allowing a "realized" gain to be recorded. Katz was not charged in that matter.
Two attempts to unwind the settlement
In September 2025, Katz applied to vacate the settled order. The Commission denied that motion on June 3, 2026, holding among other things that by consenting to the order Katz had given up the right to relitigate its findings. Katz filed the motion for reconsideration, or alternatively modification, on June 12, 2026, and that motion is the subject of the latest order.
What Katz asked for
Katz sought reconsideration of the June 3 denial and, in the alternative, a modification of the settled order that would strip out all sanctions except disgorgement. He also asked the Commission to withdraw the operative violation findings, so that the matter would be reduced to what he described as a "disgorgement-only, non-punitive disposition."
Among the provisions he wanted removed were the civil penalty, interest and the cease-and-desist order.
"Extraordinary remedy"
The Commission noted that reconsideration is an extraordinary remedy, reserved for correcting manifest errors of law or fact or for considering newly discovered evidence. It may not be used to restate arguments already made, or to raise arguments that could have been made earlier.
According to the order, Katz largely repeated the points from his motion to vacate - namely that he lacked scienter and had taken remedial steps to protect the fund and help return money to investors. The new request to remove the penalty, interest and cease-and-desist provisions could have been raised previously, the Commission said, and Katz did not identify any error of law or fact in the June 3 order.
Remediation not a "significant change"
Katz pointed to his ongoing remedial efforts, including continued assistance with investor recovery, as new circumstances justifying a modification. The Commission said that even assuming such additional efforts had been made, they did not amount to compelling circumstances.
A party seeking to modify a settlement must show a significant change in factual conditions or in law, the order states, citing the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Rufo v. Inmates of Suffolk County Jail. The Commission added that the 2024 settled order had already taken Katz's remedial acts into account when the sanctions were set.
Claim that the Division "hid" the scheme rejected
After briefing was complete, Katz sought leave in August 2026 to file a supplemental memorandum with what he called newly discovered material evidence. He argued that it showed the Division of Enforcement had kept the underlying scheme from him for almost a year.
The Commission granted leave to file the material but rejected the argument, saying it rested on the false premise that the Division was obliged to share information about an ongoing investigation with Katz, who was himself a subject of that investigation. "Investigations are not public," the order states.
The Commission found that only two of the exhibits, A and D, actually constituted newly discovered evidence, and that nothing in them provided a basis for reconsideration or modification. It also denied Katz's request for a protective order over those exhibits, noting that the Division had not asserted any need for confidentiality, and turned down his request for an order directing the Division to provide a "verified chronology response" about its investigation.
Judgment already paid
Katz's request for a temporary stay of collection efforts was denied as moot. According to the order, the request had in any case already been overtaken by Katz's payment of the outstanding judgment against him on July 16, 2026.
The order was issued by the Commission and signed by Secretary Vanessa A. Countryman. The full docket is available on the SEC website.
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