The Securities and Exchange Commission said the former KPMG accountant who oversaw audits of Xerox Corp. will pay a $100,000 fine to settle charges that he failed to disclose accounting violations that came to his attention.
Joseph Boyle retired from the firm in 2003, and the alleged violations concerned audits of Xerox's financial statements from 1999 and 2000. Boyle, neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing, and will be suspended for a year from performing accounting work for any public company. The SEC also dropped a fraud charge as part of the settlement.
The SEC also said that two former Arthur Andersen executives would pay fines to settle fraud charges in connection with the 2001 bankruptcy of American Tissue Inc.
John D. Parson, a former audit manager, and Brendon P. McDonald, a former senior accountant, agreed to pay fines of $50,000, and $30,000, respectively. Neither admitted or denied guilt in settling the civil charges. Fred Gold, a former partner, has not yet reached a settlement.
American Tissue, a major manufacturer of paper goods, filed for bankruptcy in 2001 after a $300 million accounting fraud was discovered. American Tissue's president and chief executive officer, Mehdi Gabayzadeh, was convicted of leading the fraud earlier this year and is planning an appeal.
In the original court filing, the SEC said Gold and Parson supervised, reviewed and approved Andersen's audit of American Tissue's fiscal 2000 financial statements, while McDonald participated in the audit. The SEC has said the men should have known the company's inventory was overstated, and later took measures to alter paperwork and conceal the audit's faults.
