Word: sec
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America's gilded ages have reliably ended in scandal, followed by soul-searching and reform. But investors are divided over what needs to be done. The gentle, self-policing era that SEC chairman Harvey Pitt proclaimed last October is dead and gone, but even some battered investors don't trust grandstanding lawmakers to distinguish between reforms that are needed and those that will cramp the recovery even more. That was the argument Dick Cheney and others made to the President--that in the long run, Bush will suffer more if he gets a quick political boost from reforms that strangle...
...Bush struggled to explain away the past, Cheney was being investigated by the SEC and sued by Halliburton shareholders and the conservative activist group Judicial Watch. The allegation: that Halliburton, while Cheney was CEO, greased the books to boost the firm's flagging fortunes. Its decline was due in part to Cheney's signature strategic move--Halliburton's merger with Dresser Industries in 1998, when Dresser was about to be buried under asbestos-contamination lawsuits. Halliburton remains burdened with the liability of more than 200,000 suits and as of last year was on the hook for $125 million...
...much less forgiving environment. Bush dumped $848,000 worth of Harken stock two months before the company announced a $23.2 million loss; he was 34 weeks late in filing a form the Securities and Exchange Commission required to record the sale. Old news, the President said, noting that the SEC investigated the sale and took no action...
...SEC reeled in the deal in the fall of 1990 and forced the company to restate its earnings early the next year. The $3.3 million loss became a $12.6 million loss. White House officials say Bush was clueless about the tricky accounting. "They gave discretion to the CEO," says communications director Dan Bartlett. He adds, "Audit committees were different then than they are now." Bush, who last week called on directors to "ask tough questions about accounting methods," doesn't hold himself to that standard. Harken's case, he told reporters, was one in which "the rules aren...
...directors and a member of its audit committee, the company hid losses by selling a subsidiary to itself. Harken officers bought Aloha Petroleum with a loan from the company. Harken labeled the sale a $7.9 million profit, shrinking its losses to just $3.3 million for the year. The SEC forced the company to restate its losses to $12.6 million...