Matthew Aaron Ford, Gentile’s attorney said the definition of solicitation in the jury instructions “completely nullifies the exemption.”
By defining solicitation to include “any affirmative act to induce a single transaction or ongoing business relationship,” the court created a situation where “foreign broker-dealers can’t have US clients,” Ford said. By that standard, simply creating an account username or sending a brokerage statement would be affirmative acts requiring registration with the SEC, he said.
