The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed and settled financial fraud charges against Delphi Corp. and six of the auto parts supplier’s former employees -- including the company’s former chief accounting officer.The SEC charged the company with engaging in a variety of accounting schemes and making material financial misstatements between 2000 and 2004, all resulting in a series of restatements totaling more than $200 million. Delphi settled the charges of financial fraud without admitting or denying the allegations, and no financial penalty was levied against the company.
The commission settled with former chief financial officer, Alan Dawes, who agreed to pay a $687,000 fine and submit to a five-year ban on serving as a corporate officer or director. He settled without admitting or denying the charges.
Delphi’s former chief executive and chairman of its board of directors, J.T. Battenberg III, and its former controller and chief accounting officer, Paul Free, were charged with participating in or aiding and abetting the fraud. Neither man has settled the charges.
The SEC also charged Delphi’s former treasurer and two others and settled with the company's former assistant treasurer and former director of financial accounting and reporting. An additional four individuals with charged with aiding and abetting Delphi's reporting and books-and-records violations
Delphi was spun off in 1999 from parent company General Motors and filed for bankruptcy a little over a year ago.
