RE:This is bad. Agoracom — a popular online investor relations firm — says it will "vigorously defend" itself against allegations that its employees tried to drive up share prices in small firms it represents by generating thousands of fake postings in the company's online investor forums. The Ontario Securities Commission levelled fraud allegations Thursday and ordered the firm and two of its senior managers to appear for a hearing April 26. In its complaint, the OSC alleges that Agoracom founder George Tsiolis and Agoracom director Paul Kondakos breached Ontario's securities laws by orchestrating fraudulent online postings. The allegation is that the two required Agoracom staff to post anonymously to client forums using aliases. The OSC says Agoracom staff used more than 670 aliases to post more than 24,000 messages from September 2006 to July 2009. This company is investor relations for St Georges Eco Mining.