John Tuli can breath a sigh of relief these days, as the SEC has dropped all charges against him in connection with their long running probe into revenue inflation that took place during the AOL Time Warner merger. Several of Mr. Tuli's former colleagues at AOL have not been so fortunate. More at the WSJ.

-- MDT

Labels: AOL, John Tuli, revenue inflation, SEC

Four former AOLers have already settled with the SEC. Four more still have a date with a New York courthouse. And just think, some called this case dead only a year or so back... (See this article for more on that score and an interesting link to yesterday's PurchasePro store.

At issue are allegations that the eight executives participated in a scheme to fluff up AOL company value in the 2000 to 2002 period. AOL got caught at the time, essentially, paying themselves for their own advertising. This allowed AOL to pump up its online advertising revenue by about $1 billion.

Thus far David Colburn, former head of the AOL’s business affairs unit; Eric Keller, a former senior manager; James MacGuidwin, former controller; and Jay Rappaport, a former senior manager have all reached a settlement on the charges against them, without an admission of guilt.

Still on the chopping block are John Michael Kelly, former CEO; Steven Rindner, former senior executive; Joseph Ripp, former CFO of the company’s AOL division; and Mark Wovsaniker, former head of accounting policy.

AOL / Time Warner itself paid a $300 million settlement to the SEC back in '04-05 on a related case.

You can get details on the four and four cases, right here - straight from the SEC.

-- MDT

Labels: accounting fraud, AOL, Freelance Security, revenue inflation