The Securities and Exchange Commission announced last week that it was awarding “cooperation credit” to an individual for his “substantial assistance” in the Commission’s investigation of his wrongdoing. Following on a similar announcement earlier last month, this is only the second time the Commission has credited an individual under its Cooperation Initiative.
The credit was announced as part of a settlement agreement with John Cinderey, a former vice-president at San Francisco-based United Commercial Bank. Like other executives at Commercial Bank, Cinderey was charged with violations of Section 13 of the Exchange Act for misleading auditors during the financial crisis of 2008. Cinderey, however, was able to settle the SEC’s claims against him without admitting or denying the allegations and without paying any fine (though he was given credit for a $40,000 civil penalty paid in another parallel case brought by the FDIC).