Client Alert
SEC Adds Bite to its Bark: Record Fines Imposed for Lack of Cooperation
May 01, 2004
Securities Litigation Practice Group
This Spring, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced two recordsetting settlements with large corporations for failure to fully cooperate with the SEC in a timely fashion. On May 17, 2004, Lucent Technologies agreed to pay a $25 million fine for its “lack of cooperation” with an SEC investigation. This followed a settlement in March, in which Bank of America agreed to pay $10 million for its “violations of recordkeeping and access requirements” of Federal law. These extraordinarily large fines for failure to cooperate with the SEC are further evidence that the Commission is charting a new and aggressive course in securities fraud enforcement, and that the SEC will severely penalize those companies it believes have not cooperated with governmental investigations.