From
the SEC website
SEC
Distributes $356 Million to Defrauded Fannie Mae Investors
Investor Protection Agency's "Fair Funds" Distributions
to Fraud Victims Top $3 Billion Mark
Washington, D.C., Oct. 19, 2007 - The Securities and Exchange
Commission today announced that checks totaling more than $356
million are going in today's mail to investors harmed by the
financial fraud at Fannie Mae (Federal National Mortgage Association)
between 1998 and 2004. With today's payments, the SEC has distributed
more than $3 billion overall since the agency was given authority
to send financial penalties from SEC enforcement actions to
the victims of financial fraud.
Today's
$356,128,500 going to individual investors, pension plans and
other victims represents the entirety of the money Fannie Mae
paid to settle the SEC's fraud charges last year, plus interest.
Prior to the enactment of the Fair Funds provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley
Act of 2002, the SEC was required to send financial penalties
from its enforcement actions to the U.S. Treasury instead of
to harmed investors.
"The
SEC is continuing to make highly effective use of the authority
provided by Congress in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act to return more
money to injured investors as quickly as possible," said
SEC Chairman Christopher Cox. "The $350 million penalty
paid by Fannie Mae was one of the largest in Commission history,
and now all of it is going to its rightful owners - the victims
of this fraud."
Linda
Chatman Thomsen, Director of the Division of Enforcement, added,
"I am very pleased that we were able to swiftly recompense
shareholders after creation of the Fair Fund."
The
Fair Fund for Fannie Mae victims resulted from an enforcement
action in May 2006 in which Fannie Mae paid $350 million to
settle SEC charges that it issued materially false and misleading
financial statements in SEC filings and in various reports disseminated
to investors. Final judgment was entered in August 2006, and
the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia approved
the establishment of the Fair Fund in April 2007.
Questions
regarding the Fair Fund distribution should be directed to the
fund's court-appointed distribution agent:
Call
toll-free: 1-800-760-6903 (Monday-Friday, 9:00 a.m.-7:00 p.m.
ET)
Visit the settlement Web site: www.SECFannieMaeSettlement.com
E-mail: mail@SECFannieMaeSettlement.com
Write to: SEC Fannie Mae Settlement, 201 S. Lyndale Avenue,
Suite S-3, P.O. Box 1883, Faribault, MN 55021-7138
