Aon to Pay $1.5 Million to Settle Charges of Misleading Pennsylvania Pension Fund
January 25 2024 - 10:26AM
Dow Jones News
By Ben Glickman
Aon will pay more than $1.5 million to settle charges that it
misled a client, the Pennsylvania public employees' pension fund,
about the reason for a discrepancy in calculations of investment
returns.
The Securities and Exchange Commission announced Thursday it had
settled the charges with Aon Investments USA and a former partner
at the firm, Claire Shaughnessy.
The SEC alleges Aon provided the Pennsylvania Public Employees'
Retirement System quarterly returns in June 2020 which did not
match historical returns previously provided for the same period.
In response to questions from PPERS, Aon and Shaughnessy did not
appropriately investigate the discrepancy and gave reasons that
were known to be inaccurate, according to the SEC.
The SEC said that under Pennsylvania law, certain public
employees must contribute more to their pensions if the fund does
not meet a certain investment return rate. The inaccurate return
rate provided by Aon was just above the threshold for triggering
additional contributions, the SEC said, while the corrected rate
was below the threshold.
Without admitting or denying the SEC's findings, Aon consented
to a settled order and agreed to pay a civil penalty of $1 million
and disgorgement and prejudgement interest of $542,187.
Shaughnessy, who also did not admit or deny the findings, agreed to
pay a civil penalty of $30,000.
Write to Ben Glickman at ben.glickman@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 25, 2024 10:11 ET (15:11 GMT)
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