The SEC has ordered Salt Lake City company Co-Diagnostics to pay a $250,000 penalty for misleading news releases and failing to disclose payments to family members of company executives.
. The SEC did not immediately respond to questions from The Salt Lake Tribune regarding whether there are other orders as part of the investigation, or whether the investigation is closed. Co-Diagnostics also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Published online Feb. 6 and Feb. 10, 2020, the releases announced “sales of its screening test designed to identify the presence of the novel coronavirus,” and quoted CEO Dwight Egan saying the company was “pleased to be able to offer a product to this market that excels in being both sensitive and specific, the two benchmarks for accuracy in molecular diagnostics.”
Co-Diagnostics was further admonished for not properly disclosing transactions with executives’ family members — including Egan’s son, Seth Egan, who was the director of sales, and Benson’s son, Andrew Benson, who served as the head of communications and investor relations. Both of their salaries more than quadrupled to over $1.1 million in 2020.
Responding to an email in which Hudachko copied top members of both Herbert’s and then-Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox’s staff, Wen wrote, “We are also interested in understanding the number of tests that one member of the initiative, Co-Diagnostics, has supplied so far.”After The Tribune published its 2021 story, now-Gov. Cox said he had not been contacted by the SEC, and added, “I sure as hell was going to use every test I could get ... .
Co-Diagnostics “believes these lawsuits are without merit and intends to defend the cases vigorously,” its report said.
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