{"id":20287,"date":"2016-01-25T22:13:01","date_gmt":"2016-01-26T06:13:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/miller-energy-reaches-5m-settlement-with-regulators\/"},"modified":"2016-01-25T22:13:01","modified_gmt":"2016-01-26T06:13:01","slug":"miller-energy-reaches-5m-settlement-with-regulators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/miller-energy-reaches-5m-settlement-with-regulators\/","title":{"rendered":"Miller Energy reaches $5M settlement with regulators"},"content":{"rendered":"

KENAI \u2014<\/strong> Miller Energy Resources has agreed to pay $5 million to settle allegations that it inflated the value of its Alaska oil and gas properties by more than $400 million.<\/p>\n

The Jan. 12 settlement brings an end to a U.S. Securities and Exchanges Commission investigation into the parent company of Cook Inlet Energy, The Peninsula Clarion reported.<\/p>\n

The SEC charged Miller Energy, two former executives, and one of its former accountants of fraudulently inflating the values of the company\u2019s Alaska properties by more than $400 million beginning in January 2010. Between 2010 and the announcement of the charges in August 2015, the company\u2019s stocks had increased from about 60 cents per share to nearly $9 per share.<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s then-CFO, Paul Boyd, double-counted fixed assets and then-CEO of Alaska operations David Hall knowingly understated expenses, according to the SEC\u2019s cease-and-desist order in August 2015.<\/p>\n

The SEC also accused an accountant from now-defunct accounting firm Sherb & Co. of failing to thoroughly investigate the company\u2019s financial statements.<\/p>\n

Miller Energy purchased its Alaska properties for $2.25 million in 2009 and later reported them at a value of $480 million.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen computing their estimate of fair value, Miller Energy and the CFO failed to consider the existence of numerous, readily apparent data points strongly indicating that the assets were worth substantially less than the $480 million value Miller Energy recorded,\u201d according to the settlement.<\/p>\n

Boyd and Hall presented a faulty report as the total fair value of the oil and gas reserves and \u201crefashioned\u201d an insurance study that misrepresented the value of the company\u2019s assets, the settlement said. \u201cAs a result of the foregoing, Miller Energy overvalued the Alaska assets by more than $400 million.\u201d<\/p>\n

As part of the settlement, the company has agreed to unregister all its stocks and provide documents and employees to testify about the violations.<\/p>\n

The settlement comes after Miller Energy filed for bankruptcy protection in October, citing the decline in oil prices, lower-than-expected drilling production and the withdrawal of a private lender\u2019s promise of $165 million to restructure debt for the filing.<\/p>\n

If the bankruptcy court accepts the company\u2019s plan for restructuring, the $5 million settlement will become a \u201cgeneral unsecured claim.\u201d The fine would then be paid \u201cconsistently with the payments made to Miller Energy\u2019s other general unsecured creditors,\u201d according to the SEC decision.<\/p>\n

Miller Energy will have to pay the SEC in installments if the bankruptcy court rejects its plan. The company would have until 2019 to complete the $5 million payment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KENAI \u2014 Miller Energy Resources has agreed to pay $5 million to settle allegations that it inflated the value of its Alaska oil and gas properties by more than $400 million. The Jan. 12 settlement brings an end to a U.S. Securities and Exchanges Commission investigation into the parent company of Cook Inlet Energy, The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-20287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20287\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20287"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=20287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}