SAExploration Accused of Accounting Fraud
The Securities and Trade Fee has submitted civil prices in opposition to SAExploration Holdings, a publicly traded seismic info acquisition firm centered in Houston, in excess of an alleged multi-year accounting fraud that falsely inflated the company’s profits and hid the theft of thousands and thousands of dollars.
In a criticism submitted in the Southern District of New York, the SEC said senior executives engaged in an “elaborate, four-year-lengthy fraud.” It names previous chief government officer and chairman Jeffrey Hastings, previous chief financial officer and typical counsel Brent Whiteley, previous CEO and chief functioning officer Brian Beatty, and previous vice president of functions Michael Scott as defendants. It also names the spouses of Hastings and Whiteley, Lori Hastings and Thomas O’Neill, as relief defendants.
The executives allegedly entered into a collection of seismic info acquisition contracts totaling close to $a hundred and forty million with a purportedly unrelated Alaska-centered firm that was in point controlled by Hastings and Whiteley. The defendants allegedly misappropriated nearly $six million from SAE and used the cash for a collection of round-trip transactions then stole close to $six million for themselves. Whiteley allegedly misappropriated an more $4 million as a result of a independent fictitious invoice plan.
The U.S. Attorney’s Business office for the Southern District of New York declared legal prices in opposition to Hastings in a parallel motion.
Hastings was arrested very last thirty day period in Anchorage, Alaska. A spokesperson for the firm said he was put on administrative depart extra than a year in the past and then resigned.
“As alleged in our criticism, SAE’s executives created a multi-faceted fraud that enriched executives at the expense of traders,” Jennifer Leete, an affiliate director in the division of enforcement, said in a assertion. “We will vigorously go after wrongdoing by men and women and organizations who engage in fraud and mislead traders.”
The SEC is trying to find a long lasting injunction in opposition to SAE and executives, civil penalties, disgorgement and office environment-and-director bars in opposition to the executives.
