The Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday sanctioned Las Vegas-based Empire Stock Transfer Inc. and its two leaders over disclosure failures in the firm's SEC registration filings. Publicly traded companies typically use transfer agents to track the owners of its securities. The agents generally act as intermediaries for the issuer, issuing and cancelling bond and stock certificates when their ownership changes, and handling certificates that are lost, destroyed or stolen, the SEC said. Under Chair Mary Jo White, who was confirmed by the Senate exactly a year earlier, the SEC has expanded its focus on microcap fraud, particularly by targeting the gatekeepers – unscrupulous broker-dealers, attorneys who write bogus opinion letters and lax transfer agents – that can enable the issuers' wrongdoing. The SEC effort, dubbed "Operation Broken Gate," has also targeted ineffective auditors and potentially fraudulent or negligent the issuers through trading halts and revocations
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