Former Online Marketing Company Executives Charged

Former Online Marketing Company Executives Charged

On August 21, 2018, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced that it settled charges with two former top officers of Endurance International Group Holdings Inc. for overstating the company’s subscriber base, and charged a former executive of Constant Contact Inc. for making similar misrepresentations. 

The SEC’s orders find that Endurance’s former chief executive Hari Ravichandran and former chief financial officer Waruna Ellawala knowingly provided inflated subscriber figures for the Massachusetts-based online marketing company.  The SEC also filed a complaint in United States District Court in Massachusetts alleging that former Constant Contact CFO Harpreet Grewal hid its slowing customer growth from investors and inflated its publicly reported subscriber numbers.  Constant Contact became a subsidiary of Endurance after it was acquired by it in 2016.

The SEC filed a settled enforcement action in June against Endurance and Constant Contact in which Endurance agreed to pay an $8 million penalty.  In the latest action, Ravichandran and Ellawala agreed to settle the charges without admitting or denying them and pay $1.38 million and $34,000 respectively in disgorgement, interest, and penalties.  They also agreed to cease and desist from further violations of various antifraud, reporting, books and records, and internal controls provisions of the federal securities laws.

Source: SEC.gov

Kehoe Law Firm, P.C.