Court Orders Former Waste Management Exec to Pay $4M for Securities Fraud

Date: January 3, 2008

Source: News Room

A federal district court judge ordered former Waste Management Inc. chief financial officer James E. Koenig to pay $4 million after a jury found that he committed 60 securities laws violations over a five-year period. The final judgment, entered on Dec. 21, requires Koenig to pay more than $4 million in disgorgement, prejudgment interest and civil penalties and permanently bars him from acting as an officer or director of a public company. The Securities and Exchange Commission alleged in its complaint that from 1992 to 1997, Koenig and others engaged in a "systematic scheme to falsify and misrepresent Waste Management's financial results with profits being overstated by $1.7 billion." Part of that scheme involved overstating the expected life of landfills and other assets so that current amortization and replacement costs would appear much lower. The jury found Koenig liable for securities fraud, falsifying company books and records, lying to auditors and aiding and abetting the company's violations.

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