On October 4th, the Tenth Circuit affirmed a district court's order entering summary judgment in a SEC enforcement action against the perpetrators of a Ponzi scheme. The Court found that as a matter of law, the "unsecured promissory notes" sold by the defendant were securities. In doing so the Court applied the four factors enumerated by the Supreme Court in Reves v. Ernst & Young, 494 U.S. 56 (1990), on when a "note" is a security for purposes of the Securities Act of 1933. SEC v. Thompson.