MetLife Cleans Up SEC Financial Statement Problems
December 23, 2019 by Allison Bell
MetLife Inc. has agreed to pay a $10 million penalty to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to resolve concerns about problems the company discovered with some of its financial filings, SEC officials announced Wednesday.
The SEC concluded in an order that MetLife improperly freed up reserves for annuity benefits owed to pension plan participants who were somewhat hard to find.
MetLife also overstated the reserves and understated the income associated with the company’s variable annuity obligations in Japan, the SEC reported in the order.
The SEC is letting MetLife settle the matter without admitting or denying the SEC’s findings.
In addition to paying the $10 million, MetLife has agreed to stop violating the books and records rules and the internal accounting controls rules in federal securities laws.
MetLife said in a statement about the settlement that it told the SEC about the accounting problems.
“Our focus since we self-identified these issues has been to improve our processes to deliver better service to our customers,” MetLife said. “We successfully remediated both material weaknesses associated with this settlement as of December 2018.”
Click HERE to read the full story via ThinkAdvisor
