The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has temporary suspended trading in 17 companies, including a handful of Canadian firms, over fears that their corporate identities may have been hijacked.

The SEC suspended trading of the securities of the companies from 9:30 a.m. ET Wednesday until 11:59 p.m. ET on Oct. 6, “because of questions that have been raised about the accuracy and adequacy of publicly disseminated information concerning their status as publicly-traded companies.”

Specifically, the SEC says that people appear to have “either: usurped the identity of defunct or inactive publicly traded corporations, initially by incorporating new entities using the same names as each of the defunct entities; or, reinstated defunct publicly traded corporations without authorization.”

The Canadian firms on are:
• The Alcar Chemicals Group, Inc.,Vercheres, Que.;
• Innolife Pharma, Inc., Toronto;
• KSW Industries, Inc., Etobicoke, Ont.;
• Level Vision Electronics, Inc., Montreal;
• Lotta Coal, Inc., Calgary;
• Magellan Energy Ltd., Mississauga, Ont.; and
• Microlink Solutions, Inc., Calgary.

IE