| Adelphia Will Pay $715 Million to Avoid Criminal Charges For Accounting Fraud |
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| Home Theater News Industry-Trade News | |
| Written by Diane Sherwin | |
| Monday, 25 April 2005 | |
 Today
Adelphia settled with the US government to pay $715 million in order to
avoid criminal charges for accounting fraud. John Rigas, who founded
Adelphia, and the Rigas family will forfeit 95 percent of their assets
in Adelphia as part of the settlement. According to the securities
regulator, these assets are more than $1.5 billion in value. These
assets will then be put into Adelphia, and Adelphia will pay $715
million in cash and stock to a fund designated for investors who lost
billions of dollars when the company went bankrupt in 2002.
To avoid criminal prosecution, Adelphia also agreed to continue helping the Justice Department with its investigations. The Securities and Exchange Commission accused the company of excluding billions of dollars from its balance sheets, falsifying operating statistics and inflating earnings to meet Wall Street expectations. Just last week, Adelphia accepted a buyout offer from Time Warner and Comcast in a joint bid. The bid is valued at $17.6 billion total, with $12.7 billion in cash and the rest in stock. The top-two cable companies edged out rival Cablevision’s bid at $17.1 billion. In the winning joint bid, Comcast is contributing $1.5 billion in cash, while Time Warner shoulders the majority of the purchase. Source: CNN.com Like this article? Bookmark and share with any of the sites below.        |
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