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‘Enforcement 40’ for 2020
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Join the Securities Litigation and Enforcement Group on LinkedInSEC Charges Former Rail Freight Trader with Accounting Fraud
The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged David Pope, a rail freight trader formerly employed by agricultural cooperative CHS Inc., for manipulating the values and quantities of certain of the company’s rail freight contracts. In December 2018, CHS restated its publicly filed financial statements from 2014 through 2018 to correct errors caused by Pope. As […]
SEC Charges Infrastructure Company Granite Construction and Former Executive with Financial Reporting Fraud
he Securities and Exchange Commission today charged Granite Construction, Incorporated and its former Senior Vice President, Dale Swanberg, with fraud for inflating the financial performance of the major subdivision Swanberg managed. In 2021, Granite restated its financial statements from 2017 through 2019 to correct revenue and profit margin errors allegedly caused by Swanberg’s misconduct. The […]
Moderna CFO Fired After First Day – Radical Compliance
Wild news in the Covid-19 world today: Vaccine maker Moderna has fired its new CFO one day into the job, after the executive’s previous employer disclosed in an SEC filing that it had launched an investigation into fraudulent financial reporting. Moderna disclosed the departure of Jorge Gomez in a terse press release issued Wednesday morning. […]
SEC Digs Deeper Into Companies’ EPS Manipulation – WSJ
The Securities and Exchange Commission’s review of companies’ earnings per share has brought cases against three firms over the past year or so, and could come into greater focus under the regulator’s new leadership. The initiative, launched a few years ago, reviews earnings per share for the majority of U.S. public companies at least once […]
NYSE firms more likely to commit financial fraud, study finds
Researchers from a trio of universities (Washington State, Pennsylvania State, and Miami) studied 250 companies involved in Securities and Exchange Commission fraud filings from 2005 to 2013, and found that Fortune 500 companies were much more likely to have cooked books. Researchers looked closely for predictors of fraud, and found four risk factors : Fortune […]
Fraud Prevention CEO Is Charged With Fraud for Fake Sales (1)
The founder of cyberfraud prevention company NS8 Inc. was accused by federal prosecutors of raising more than $100 million for the firm by misleading investors about the state of its finances. NS8 said it is cooperating with investigators and has learned that the founder and former chief executive officer, Adam Rogas, “fabricated” much of its […]
SEC Charges Companies, Former Executives as Part of Risk-Based Initiative
The Securities and Exchange Commission today filed settled actions against two public companies for violations that resulted in the improper reporting of quarterly earnings per share (EPS) that met or exceeded analyst consensus estimates. The actions are the first arising from investigations generated by the Division of Enforcement’s EPS Initiative, which utilizes risk-based data analytics […]
SEC and DOJ Charge Former Executives of Private Company for Misrepresenting the Company’s Technology
In a case reminiscent of last year’s blockbuster government actions against Theranos and its former executives, the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission have separately charged two former executives of a privately held company for falsely touting the firm’s products. On February 12, 2019, the SEC filed a civil enforcement […]
Tesla Faces Deepening Criminal Probe Over Whether It Misstated Production Figures – WSJ
Tesla Inc., with a fresh civil fraud settlement now behind it, faces a new legal problem: a deepening criminal investigation. Federal Bureau of Investigation agents are examining whether Tesla misstated information about production of its Model 3 sedans and misled investors about the company’s business going back to early 2017, people familiar with the matter […]
SEC Charges Walgreens and Two Former Executives With Misleading Investors About Forecasted Earnings Goal
The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc., former CEO Gregory Wasson, and former CFO Wade Miquelon with misleading investors about increased risk that the company would miss a key financial goal announced when Walgreen Co. entered into a merger with Alliance Boots GmbH in 2012. Walgreens agreed to pay a $34.5 […]