Citi (C) Disputes Allegations Pandit Violated Sarbanes-Oxley

FBN’s Charlie Gasparino reports that Citigroup (C) is defending CEO Vikram Pandit amid accusations by analyst Mike Mayo that Pandit violated Sarbanes-Oxley in 2008. Citigroup lawyers argue that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) “never cited ‘material weakness’ in terms of Citigroup’s accounting” and thus, Pandit was not required to “disclose problems” but “address the deficiencies, which they say he did.”

Excerpt from the report, courtesy of Fox Business Network:

On whether Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit violated Sarbanes-Oxley:
“Mike Mayo has been accusing him of doing that when in 2008, he signed off on Citigroup’s financial results just when he got a letter from the OCC stating there were deficiencies in Citigroup’s accounting. Citigroup is mounting a defense to this. They are saying he didn’t violate and the reason why is the OCC never cited ‘material weakness’ in terms of Citigroup’s accounting. They talked about deficiencies, but they never cited material weakness and without citing material weakness, you do not have to disclose problems at Citigroup. You have to address the deficiencies, which they say he did.”

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