Litigation Releases (Jeremiah Silkowski and SQN Capital Management LLC)

Jeremiah Silkowski and SQN Capital Management LLC

U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Litigation Release No. 26671 / October 9, 2026

Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jeremiah Silkowski and SQN Capital Management LLC

, No. 1:26-civ-08162 (S.D.N.Y. filed September 18, 2026)

SEC Charges Fund Manager with Recidivist Violations of the Advisers Act in Settled Action

On September 18, 2026, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed charges against New York-based investment adviser SQN Capital Management LLC and its President, Chief Executive Officer, Chief Compliance Officer and majority owner, Jeremiah Silkowski, for multiple violations of antifraud and other provisions of the Investment Advisers Act of 1940. The defendants agreed to settle the charges and, on October 8, 2026, the Court entered consent judgments against the defendants imposing permanent injunctive relief and other sanctions, as well as an order appointing a receiver for the investment funds managed by SQN Capital.

The SEC's complaint, filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleges that from at least 2019 through 2025, Silkowski and SQN Capital repeatedly breached their fiduciary duties to four investment funds they managed by failing to comply with governing fund documents and inflating the funds' net asset values. Among other things, according to the complaint, Silkowski and SQN Capital failed to engage an accounting firm to conduct audits of the funds' annual financial statements or even to prepare unaudited annual financial statements that conformed to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, as required by the funds' governing documents.

In addition, the complaint alleges that the only asset valuations prepared for the funds during this period were prepared by Silkowski alone and not, as he represented to fund investors, by an independent valuation expert, and Silkowski materially inflated those values. As alleged in the complaint, rather than taking reasonable steps to apply fair value principles, as required by the Funds' governing documents, Silkowski simply kept the net asset values unchanged for years regardless of changes in projected cash flows, deteriorating market conditions, the actual performance of the assets, or even whether a given asset was still held.

The complaint also alleges that Silkowski repeatedly misled the funds' investors about the status of SQN Capital's efforts to liquidate fund assets in accordance with the funds' governing documents. According to the complaint, Silkowski repeatedly claimed, without a reasonable basis, that the liquidation process would soon be completed, without disclosing that market conditions prevented SQN Capital from selling the funds' assets and that the firm lacked the resources to complete the liquidation process, which has extended well past the liquidation periods prescribed by fund governing documents, leaving investors in limbo and without access to their funds.

According to the complaint, SQN Capital and Silkowski are recidivists. As the complaint alleges, the Commission has twice charged SQN Capital, in settled administrative proceedings, with violating Advisers Act Rule 206(4)-2, known as the custody rule, and Advisers Act Rule 206(4)-7, known as the compliance rule, first in 2020 and again in 2023. According to the complaint, both actions arose from SQN Capital's failure to deliver audited financial statements to fund investors, and Silkowski was charged in the second proceeding with aiding and abetting and causing those violations. As alleged in the complaint, SQN Capital has continued to violate the custody and compliance rules, aided and abetted by Silkowski, due to its ongoing failure to deliver audited financial statements to fund investors.

The complaint charges both defendants with violating Sections 206(1) and 206(2) of the Advisers Act; charges SQN Capital with also violating Section 206(4) of the Advisers Act and Rules 206(4)-2 and 206(4)-7; and charged Silkowski with aiding and abetting those violations.

Without admitting the allegations in the complaint, SQN Capital and Silkowski both consented to the entry of an order appointing a receiver to liquidate the assets of the funds managed by SQN Capital and to distribute the net proceeds to investors. Both defendants also consented, without admitting the allegations of the complaint, to the entry of final judgments permanently enjoining them from committing or aiding and abetting violations of the charged provisions; ordering Silkowski to pay a civil money penalty in the amount of $200,000; and permanently prohibiting Silkowski from acting as or associating with an investment adviser, broker or dealer, except to the extent that the Court-appointed receiver deems it necessary for Silkowski to assist the receiver in the discharge of the receiver's Court-ordered responsibilities.

The Commission's investigation was conducted by Mariel Bronen, Christopher Castano, Kenneth Gottlieb, Neal Jacobson and George N. Stepaniuk and was supervised by Sheldon L. Pollock. The litigation is being led by Laura Meehan and supervised by Daniel Loss and Jack Kaufman, all of the SEC's New York Regional Office