Media company Time Warner Inc. has agreed to pay the U.S. government $210 million to settle charges that its America Online unit fraudulently inflated its revenue figures, court documents showed on Wednesday. Separately, Time Warner is expected to pay about $300 million to settle civil charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission related to its buyout of a stake held by Germany's Bertelsmann AGin AOL Europe, a source familiar with that matter said. The company has already set up a reserve to cover anticipated costs of the settlements.
The $210 million payment is part of a deal to settle criminal charges of aiding and abetting securities fraud. Also in the agreement filed a federal court in Virginia, AOL accepted responsibility for conduct of its employees that led to the criminal violations and agreed to cooperate fully with the Justice Department in its investigation of those people. In exchange, the government agreed to defer prosecution of the company for 24 months, when it will dismiss charges if AOL had followed terms of the deal.
News source: reuters.com
The $210 million payment is part of a deal to settle criminal charges of aiding and abetting securities fraud. Also in the agreement filed a federal court in Virginia, AOL accepted responsibility for conduct of its employees that led to the criminal violations and agreed to cooperate fully with the Justice Department in its investigation of those people. In exchange, the government agreed to defer prosecution of the company for 24 months, when it will dismiss charges if AOL had followed terms of the deal.
News source: reuters.com
Virtual seating for this event will open 30 minutes before the scheduled broadcast time.
Barb Bowman is a Windows XP Most Valued Professional (MVP) and has been a regular contributor to the Microsoft Windows XP Expert Zone Community since the launch of Windows XP in 2001. She enjoys sharing her own experiences and insights into today’s leading edge technologies. She is a product development manager for Comcast High-Speed Internet, but her views here are strictly personal.
bush is offering the country to the highest bidder
Maybe a quart of scotch a few boxes of cigars too.
hell yeah, let the UK be next
who would they call on when they start getting their ass kicked then? LOL!
Didn't Bush also think that the terrorists were too dumb to successfully carry out a terrorist attack?
Ah yes, ignorance is bliss... until you wake up to a few thousand dead people.
"no one can kick the US butt"
Is that why black watch was called in? Can you not see the depressing realty of iraq? At the moment it looks like another Afghanistan when the USSR where fighting there.
Try enlisting and see how invincible you feel
You have pulled an Enron, but it's ok, just play ball and we'll let you off completely clean. We have a history of allowing giant corporations to screw over the people, and after a token inquiry, you will be set to do the same all over again. Some people say that corporations engaging in illegal acts should be hit where it hurts, and financially punished based on a percentage of their net worth. While it's true that if the penalty for fraud on such a massive scale was the seizure of 25% and upwards of your corporate assets, companies such as yourselves wouldn't look at breaking the law as just standard business procedure, and the ensuing penalties as the cost of doing business, and cheaper than playing it by the book, we just love you, and would never do anything to hurt your feelings. Some people just don't seem to understand the logic behind the fact that if you get caught stealing a few hundred dollars from a handfull of people, you're going to spend a long time in jail, but if you get caught stealing hundreds of millions, or even billions, from hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of people, it's ok, you'll never see the inside of a cell.
Your biggest fan,
The US Government.
Commenting has either been disabled on this article or you are not logged in. Click here to login or register, its free!
Note: Anonymous commenting is disabled in order to keep the quality of responses to a high standard.