(HedgeCo.Net) The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged the former CFO and two former employees of a publicly traded transportation company with fraud for manipulating the company\u2019s financial results in order to meet earnings targets and projections.<\/p>\n
The SEC alleges that Peter Armbruster, the former CFO of Roadrunner Transportation Systems Inc., hid incurred expenses by improperly deferring and spreading them across multiple quarters to minimize their impact on Roadrunner\u2019s net earnings. Armbruster then allegedly manipulated certain reductions to liabilities, creating an income \u201ccushion\u201d that could be accessed in future quarters to offset expenses. The SEC further alleges that Armbruster as well as Bret Naggs and Mark Wogsland, former controllers of Roadrunner\u2019s Truckload segment, identified and failed to write-off millions of dollars in overvalued assets and overstated receivables at one of Roadrunner\u2019s operating companies. According to the SEC\u2019s complaint, Armbruster, Naggs, and Wogsland also misled Roadrunner\u2019s outside auditor about these misstated accounts, and as a result Roadrunner materially misstated its operating income, net income, and earnings per share in its annual, quarterly and current reports filed with the SEC.<\/p>\n
\u201cInvestors depend on reliable financial statements to make informed decisions,\u201d said Joel R. Levin, Director of the SEC\u2019s Chicago Regional Office. \u201cAs we allege, these former, high-ranking executives deprived investors of truthful, reliable information on Roadrunner\u2019s financial health. Instead, they employed deceptive accounting to manipulate earnings in an effort to chase earnings targets and projections.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a parallel action, the Fraud Section of the U.S. Department of Justice has filed criminal charges against Armbruster, Naggs, and Wogsland.<\/p>\n
The SEC\u2019s complaint, filed in federal court in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, alleges that Armbruster, Naggs, and Wogsland violated the antifraud and other accounting-related provisions of the federal securities laws. The complaint seeks permanent injunctions, penalties, and officer-and-director bars against all defendants, disgorgement plus interest from Wogsland, and clawback bonuses and other incentive-related compensation paid to Armbruster while the alleged fraud was taking place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(HedgeCo.Net) The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged the former CFO and two former employees of a publicly traded transportation company with fraud for manipulating the company\u2019s financial results in order to meet earnings targets and projections. The SEC alleges […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,3,16048],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hedgeco-networks-press-releases","category-hedgeco-news","category-hedgecovest-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68713"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68713\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68714,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68713\/revisions\/68714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}