SEC Sues Former Waste Management Executives

Danielle Jackson

New York -- The Securities and Exchange Commission filed suit Tuesday against six former executives of Houston-based Waste Management Inc., charging them with falsifying and manipulating financial results from 1992 to 1997.

The SEC has charged that the executives manipulated financial results to meet earnings targets and that their auditor, Chicago-based Arthur Andersen LLP, helped by issuing unqualified audit reports on the company's annual financial statement.

Additionally, the SEC has said that all six former executives -- Founder Dean L. Buntrock, former President Phillip B. Rooney, former Chief Financial Officer James E. Koenig, former Chief Accounting Officer Thomas C. Hau, former General Counsel Herbert Getz and former Vice President of Finance Bruce D. Tobecksen -- benefitted financially from fraudulent practices and is seeking to recover their gains. Rooney has said that he will challenge the suit.

According to Sarah Voss, Waste Management's director of corporate communications, the company is fully cooperating with the SEC, and the actions taken against the former executives should not affect the company's current operations.