A victim of OilPods, a company that sold investment opportunities in oil related investments, had won his lawsuit against the company and its sole director Mark Chang over his investment losses.

The suit was initiated in 2009 but was only decided last month.

The victim was awarded almost US$40,000 by the district judge but ironically, the legal costs that he needs to pay could easily exceed that amount.

The victim  had initiated another lawsuit against the agent who sold him the investment but that suit was dismissed with costs by the judge.

Back in 2008, Colorado-based Powder River Petroleum, had run into problems with allegations of being a ponzi scheme. This was the company that marketing agent OilPods had used to structure the oil investment opportunity.

It had then filed for bankruptcy and investors were left hanging.

Mr Chang is now an Australian permanent resident living in Perth.

Victim of Ponzi Scheme to get a Refund (Straits Times)

I received an email from someone asking about whether there were any updates on the Oilpods investment scheme.

For those who have not been following the story, Oilpods is an investment into working interests in Canadian oil wells, with monthly returns generated from the sale of the oil and gas. Eventually, it was discovered that the scheme was operated as a ponzi, and investors stopped receiving their payouts.

I did some checking for the latest news and found that in April this year, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) actually filed a suit against Brian Fox for fraud.

This comes almost two and a half years after Powder River Petroleum International was put into receivership.

SEC claims that Fox has misled the investing public by fraudulently inflating the revenue and omitting major liabilities of Powder River in Commission filings and by making other false and misleading public disclosures.

Fox has responded to the charges pleading his innocence, blaming Oilpods and the receiver for the loss of the shareholders.

Whatever the outcome, it doesn’t look like investors with Oilpods will be getting back any of their money, especially when Power River was put into liquidation and not much was recovered from them during the process.

Timeline of events:

• December 2003: Brian Fox becomes chairman, president and CEO of Powder River Petroleum International.
• Late 2004: Powder River begins conveying working oil and gas interests to investors in Asia for more than $43 million.
• Mid-2007: Powder River’s guaranteed payment obligations to investors exceeds actual oil and gas production revenues.
• December 2008: Company files for Chapter 11 protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Oklahoma City.
• November 2010: Chapter 11 case is converted to a Chapter 7 liquidation.