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FCA to Pay $40 Million to Settle Fake-Sales Claim
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV has agreed to pay $40 million to settle charges that it misled investors about its financial performance by issuing bogus monthly U.S. sales figures between 2012 and 2016.
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Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV has agreed to pay $40 million to settle charges that it misled investors about its financial performance by issuing bogus monthly U.S. sales figures between 2012 and 2016.
The figures fraudulently indicated that FCA had maintained a 69-month streak of year-on-year sales gains, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charges. In fact, the SEC says, FCA paid certain dealers to inflate their true sales by reporting sales at the end of one month and reversing the deals at the beginning of the next month.
The SEC says FCA also “banked” the fake sales and added them during months in which the series of gains would otherwise be broken.
The SEC began investigating the cheating three years ago. The scheme enabled the carmaker to claim the sales streak, which ended in September 2013, continued for another three years.
Under terms of the settlement, FCA neither admits nor denies the SEC findings. But it agrees to not allow any violations in the future.
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