The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said Monday Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce agreed to pay $80 million to settle charges it helped fallen energy trader Enron Corp. in accounting fraud.
The SEC also said it had sued three current and former CIBC executives -- two of whom were settling and will pay a total of more than $600,000 -- in connection with the Enron case.
Enron, once the seventh-largest company in the United States, collapsed and filed for bankruptcy in 2001 in the first of a series of corporate scandals to shake U.S. markets.
The SEC said it charged CIBC and the three executives with ”having helped Enron to mislead its investors through a series of complex structured finance transactions over a period of several years preceding Enron’s bankruptcy.”
The $80 million payment will consist of $37.5 million in repayment of ill-gotten gains, a $37.5 million penalty and $5 million in prejudgment interest, the SEC said.
In a separate action, Canada’s bank regulator and the U.S. Federal Reserve said they jointly settled with CIBC over Enron-related transactions.
The Fed and Canada’s Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions said CIBC must adopt remedial policies and procedures, some of which are already in place.
