MANILA - The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) advanced its crackdown on illegal lending with another legal victory, after a regional trial court convicted the incorporators and directors of X-CEE789 Lending and Trading, Inc. for submitting falsified documents for its registration as a lending company. The Pasay City Regional Trial Court Branch 118 earlier found Merlinda Derequito, Mila Anonuevo, Haydee Alarcon, Maria Collen Custodio, Marisa Abaquin, Ramona Belen, Pinder Kaur Bhopal, Parvesh Kumar, Karan Kumar, Surinder Bhopal, Kamaljit Kaur, and Jaswinder Kaur guilty beyond reasonable doubt of violating Section 12(3)(a) of Republic Act 9474, or the Lending Company Regulation Act of 2007 (LCRA). The court accordingly sentenced each of the respondents, who formed X-CEE789 as incorporators and directors, to pay a fine of PHP10,000, with costs. The SEC filed the criminal complaint against the respondents upon finding that they made a false statement in their application for the inc