An executive of investing chat site Agoracom is facing new allegationst hat he intercepted private messages sent between customers on the site so he could gather information about companies in which he personally invested.

The accusation is levelled by the Ontario Securities Commission in ar evised statement of allegations filed this week against Agoracom Investor Relations Corp. and two officials, vice-president of operations Apostolis (Paul) Kondakos and company founder George Tsiolis.

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The OSC first unveiled its case against Agoracom last April, alleging that much of the online chatter on the company’s popular penny-stock discussion forum was the work of its own employees using more than 670 fake names to talk about companies’ shares.

The OSC said more than 24,000 comments were posted on Agoracom’s sitebetween 2006 and 2009 by employees using aliases, and sometimes the employees had conversations among themselves about a stock. The commission said the postings were “occasionally promotional” and promoted purchasing or holding a stock.

The OSC this week added a new allegation to the case, accusing Mr.Kondakos of monitoring the site’s “private messaging” service and intercepting messages between users “for the purpose of gathering information about reporting issuers and issuers in which he was personally invested.”

The OSC alleged the interceptions occurred from July, 2008, to February, 2009.

“Kondakos forwarded private messages to a personal friend who was not associated with Agoracom and provided this individual with administrative access to the Agoracom website,” the commission said in astatement released late Wednesday.

“This individual also intercepted private messages between public users, and forwarded these private message to Kondakos.” The commission said the conduct was “contrary to the public interest.”

OSC staff have reached a settlement agreement with the company and theexecutives. It will be considered by a commission panel at a hearingFriday. Terms of the settlement have not been disclosed, but will bereleased if the deal is approved Friday.

Mr. Tsiolis said Thursday that the executives could not comment on thecase because of the hearing Friday. They have previously denied theOSC’s allegations, saying they initiated some conversations on the siteonly to act as a catalyst to spark conversations.

The OSC has removed one allegation from its original statement that accused Agoracom staff of posting positive comments about firms to induce clients to keep their business with Agoracom, or to increase the value of companies’ stock options held by Agoracom. The firm received options from companies as payment for its investor relations services.

Agoracom strongly denied that suggestion in a statement issued in April,saying that it “outright rejects any allegation or insinuation” that postings were done to boost the value of its stock options.

Editor's note: an earlier version of this online story incorrectlyidentified Mr. Kondakos' role at Agoracom. This version has beencorrected.