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Kraft Heinz is settling the fraud case with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over the reported inflation of profits, overstated cost savings, and deception of investors.
Kraft Heinz will be paying $62 million to settle and this was announced last weekend. According to the SEC, the Chicago, Illinois headquartered American food company allegedly misrepresented its financial results for years and this violated the federal anti-fraud and record-keeping laws in the country.
CNN Business reported that two of the firm’s former executives - operating and procurement chiefs Eduardo Pelleissone and Klaus Hofmann - will also be penalized and have already agreed to pay a combined sum of $400,000. The two were also charged in the accounting scheme that was uncovered by the SEC.
The commission stated that the said high-ranking company officials engaged in accounting fraud for years by falsifying suppliers’ contracts. The regulatory investigation was first revealed in 2019 and today, the SEC is formally charging the company and two of its former executives.
The government regulator stated that starting in the last quarter of 2015 to the end of 2018, Kraft Heinz became involved in various kinds of “accounting misconduct" that includes producing fake supplier contracts so it can get discounts and eventually make the company’s financials look good to investors and business analysts.
As a result of the investigation, the SEC found Kraft Heinz violated the negligence-based anti-fraud, books and records, reporting, and internal accounting controls provisions of the country’s securities laws.
“Kraft and its former executives are charged with engaging in improper expense management practices that spanned many years and involved numerous misleading transactions, millions in bogus cost savings, and a pervasive breakdown in accounting controls,” SEC's division of enforcement associate director, Anita B. Bandy, said in a press release. “The violations harmed investors who ultimately bore the costs and burdens of a restatement and delayed financial reporting. Kraft and its former executives are being held accountable for placing the pursuit of cost savings above compliance with the law."
Meanwhile, according to Market Insider, Kraft Heinz and its two executives neither admit nor deny the charges hurled against them. Despite this, as stated earlier, they have agreed to settle and agreed not to commit any violations again in the future.
