Tag: SEC

VMware charged with misleading investors

VMware Charged with Playing Revenue Recognition Timing Games

Cloud computing company, VMware, has been charged with violating revenue recognition accounting rules by shifting millions of dollars of revenue into future quarters to meet projections. It will pay an $8 million penalty and has consented to a cease-and-desist order for misleading investors by concealing the company’s slowing financial performance Read More

China Flag

SEC To Chinese Companies: Beware Of Switching Auditors

Chinese companies seeking to retain a new accounting firm based in the United States so as to not be delisted from U.S. securities exchanges must remain mindful of their compliance regulatory obligations, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s acting chief accountant warned in a recent statement. According to SEC data, more Read More

GOL Airline

SEC Charges Insurance Executives in ‘Massive Fraudulent Scheme’

The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged two insurance executives and their Malta-based registered investment adviser, Standard Advisory Services Limited, for defrauding clients out of more than $75 million through undisclosed transactions that benefited themselves and their companies. In a statement, Osman Nawaz, Chief of the Division of Enforcement’s Complex Read More

Pay equity ratings

SEC Adopts Final Pay Versus Performance Disclosure Rule

It’s been twelve years in the making, but last week the Securities and Exchange Commission finally adopted a rule mandated by the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 that will require companies to disclose the relationship between executive pay and the financial performance of the company. The SEC first proposed amendments to Read More

SEC: Granite Construction To Pay $12M Over Financial Reporting Fraud

Granite Construction will pay $12 million in a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission over financial reporting fraud charges after one of its former executives manipulated the company’s financial performance, the SEC announced. According to the SEC’s complaint, filed Aug. 25 in federal district court in the Northern District Read More

GOL Airline

Albemarle FCPA Probe Inches Closer To Resolution

Chemical company Albemarle disclosed in a recent regulatory filing that it has “commenced discussions” with both the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) concerning the potential resolution of an investigation that began more than four years ago into potential violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Read More

Health care compliance

SEC: Surgalign To Pay $2M For Accounting And Disclosure Fraud

Surgalign Holdings (formerly RTI Surgical Holdings), a global medical technology company, must pay a $2 million civil penalty for pulling revenue forward from future quarters in order to mask revenue shortfalls and then failed to disclose this practice to investors, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced Aug. 3. According to Read More

SEC seal

SEC Charges JPMorgan, UBS, TradeStation Over Identity Theft Protection Deficiencies

The Securities and Exchange Commission settled charges against J.P. Morgan Securities, UBS Financial Services, and TradeStation Securities for deficiencies in their programs to prevent customer identity theft, in violation of the SEC’s Identity Theft Red Flags Rule (Regulation S-ID). The SEC’s orders find that each firm violated Rule 201 of Read More

Equitable Financial Fine

SEC Scolds Equitable Financial for Providing Misleading Account Statements

Equitable Financial Life Insurance Co. agreed to pay a $50 million civil penalty, which will be distributed to harmed investors, to settle charges that it provided misleading account statements to about 1.4 million investors. The Securities and Exchange Commission, which pursued the fraud case, said that the statements included materially Read More

Bank of America penalties

BofA Faces $425 Million in Penalties from Two Enforcement Actions

Bank of America has been ordered to pay $225 million in civil penalties and redress to harmed consumers for engaging in abusive practices when it denied consumers access to unemployment benefits on prepaid debit cards at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. In a separate case, Bank of America is Read More