- Chief Compliance Officer and VP of Legal Affairs, Arrow Electronics
By 
Adrianne Appel2022-12-05T21:16:00
Telecommunications giant AT&T agreed to pay $6.25 million as part of a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) addressing allegations three of its executives fed sensitive financial information to Wall Street research analysts and not investors.
The SEC announced the agreement Monday, along with individual settlements with AT&T investor relations executives Christopher Womack, Michael Black, and Kent Evans for $25,000 apiece. The penalty the company agreed to pay marks a record for violations of Regulation Fair Disclosure (Reg FD).
The allegations, initially brought by the SEC in March 2021, date back to March 2016, when Womack, Black, and Evans learned the company would fall below its expected quarterly results for the third quarter running because of lagging smartphone sales. The executives called about 20 research analysts and shared the company’s sales data and confidential financial information in violation of Reg FD, according to the complaint.
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