Church fined by SEC

[Calm]

12 minutes ago, ttribe said:

@smac97

"Charges"

https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2023-35

Quote

We allege that the LDS Church’s investment manager, with the Church’s knowledge, went to great lengths to avoid disclosing the Church’s investments, depriving the Commission and the investing public of accurate market information,” said Gurbir S. Grewal, Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement. “The requirement to file timely and accurate information on Forms 13F applies to all institutional investment managers, including non-profit and charitable organizations.

I may have misunderstood your point…ignore if irrelevant, lol

Oops…you meant they had used the term “charges”, in the headlines even.  My comment was irrelevant.   

Edited February 22 by Calm

[SeekingUnderstanding]

I think the key take away for me is this:

In 2017, Elder Ballard made the following statement about the openness of the church:

“We would have to say, as two apostles who have covered the world and know the history of the Church and know the integrity of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve from the beginning, there has been no attempt on the part of the Church leaders to try to hide anything from anybody.”

https://www.thechurchnews.com/2017/11/20/23213151/personal-revelation-homosexuality-and-dating-among-topics-discussed-in-face-to-face-broadcast

At that very moment, the church also had a series of shell companies designed (with random addresses and managers with no internet presence  and common names) to hide its finances. 
 

The church has two very different standards of honesty. One it teaches to its members:

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-principles/chapter-31-honesty?lang=eng

“There are many other forms of lying. When we speak untruths, we are guilty of lying. We can also intentionally deceive others by a gesture or a look, by silence, or by telling only part of the truth. Whenever we lead people in any way to believe something that is not true, we are not being honest.”

And then there is a separate honesty standard they hold themselves to going back to the beginning with Joseph’s “carefully worded denials” to todays shell companies. If this behavior meets Elder Ballards “there has been no attempt on the part of the Church leaders to try to hide anything from anybody” that’s pretty gross. 

[Teancum]

7 hours ago, smac97 said:

The SEC alleged there was a problem, and the Church - without admitting or denying the SEC's findings - agreed to settle the matter by paying a fine. 

Thanks,

-Smac

A Nobody pays a fine to the SEC unless there is a greater threat if they don't and if they are not guilty of something. As I said, I have some experience with the SEC and how they operate when entities run afoul of their regulation.  One really does not want to get in their crosshairs. The language it typical of such interchanges. 

Again oh wise one, what was the reason EPA set up 13 LLCs?  What was the end goal?

 

 

Edited February 22 by Teancum

[SteveO]

7 hours ago, smac97 said:

Out of curiosity, did your brother contract cancer because of his mission?

I don’t know.  It was a year in.

I don’t remember the details, but it was something like he came home, and the mission insurance dropped him and told us to have my dad’s insurance begin coverage.  Obviously, that doesn’t work too well with a pre existing condition.  And it’s kind of a huge “screw you” from the church’s insurance.  I think my dad’s insurance agreed to pay part, but the rest of the cost would’ve just destroyed us financially.

I know my dad went in and threatened the stake President with going to the media and dragging the church’s reputation through the mud.

It was ugly.  I have absolutely no love for the business side of the church.  They’re jerks, they don’t care about you, you’re just a number to them—And they have to be.  With all those assets, the church needs an attack dog that’s able to unsympathetically say “no” over the phone.

[Analytics]

5 hours ago, smac97 said:

Okay.  I did a search for the word "fraud."  Zero hits.  So where are you getting this "They arose from fraud" stuff?

Thanks,

-Smac

According to the SEC's definition of "misstatement", "Misstatements can arise from error (i.e., unintentional misstatement) or fraud."

In this case, the misstatements were made "for the sole purpose of filing Forms 13F and preventing public disclosure by Ensign Peak of the Church’s equity securities holdings."

These misstatements were not unintentional. Thus, according to the definition of misstatement, they arose from fraud.

[ttribe]

8 hours ago, smac97 said:

Actually, there is nothing wrong with that.

I am open to correction, of course.  Feel free to correct me by publishing the entirety of your personal finances for public consumption.  "Sauce for the goose" and all that.

As soon as you publish the entirety of your personal financials to the world, I'll start taking seriously your pronouncements about what is "ethical" and what is not.

As I understand it, the SEC Order contains allegations.  Claims of fact not yet proven to be true.

Thanks,

-Smac

When I get 503(c)3 status and start soliciting donations for membership in my personal circle, I'll start publishing my finances. In the meantime, comparing a private citizen to a multi-billion dollar charitable organization that lives off the donations of its members is comparing apples and oranges and is a bad faith argument.

[ttribe]

8 hours ago, smac97 said:

I think you are substantially overstating things here.  Setting up LLCs is often an utterly mundane, and entirely legal and appropriate, thing to do. 

I have a client that works on house "flips."  For each and every transaction, we set up an LLC to A) hold title/ownership, B) allocate managerial authority, C) limit liability to the client, D) facilitate resolutions with borrowers, and for other legitimate reasons.  From Wikipedia (second emphasis added) :

There are plenty of "legitimate business purposes" for these entities, which substantially undermines your claim that "the establishment of the shell LLCs would be used to show an intent to, at best, mislead users of the filings, if not to outright defraud them" (emphasis added).

Thanks,

-Smac

I've already acknowledged the legitimate uses of LLCs and shell corporations. Perhaps you would do us all the courtesy of catching up with the entire thread before you start firing off responses?

My statement about misleading and defrauding was an effort to inform readers as to how I believe these allegations would be used by the SEC and/or their experts in presenting the case were it to go to trial.

[ttribe]

6 hours ago, smac97 said:

"In my experience as an expert witness who is a Certified Fraud Examiner, the establishment of the shell LLCs would be used to show an intent to, at best, mislead users of the filings, if not to outright defraud them."

"Intentional concealment is a serious problem."

"To be clear, they were charged with not filing the forms in Ensign Peak's name. That's the lie."

"The SEC says" being the operative phrase.

And per the PSM article, which you do not disagree with and find to be "accurate," the "violation of the law" in view is functionally equivalent to "a traffic ticket."

Thanks,

-Smac

Yes, 'intentional' is clearly what the SEC is documenting in its Order. It is my experience that the SEC does not choose its words or its allegations lightly. If you are now trying to impugn the SEC in an effort to defend the Church's honor, I think you are using an unwise strategy. Moreover, engaging in a defense on technicalities may work (sometimes) in a court of law, but out here you just look like you're trying to distract the reader from the actual statements in the SEC's Order. In short, in my opinion, you are defending more than a couple of indefensible actions.

[bsjkki]

53 minutes ago, SteveO said:

I don’t know.  It was a year in.

I don’t remember the details, but it was something like he came home, and the mission insurance dropped him and told us to have my dad’s insurance begin coverage.  Obviously, that doesn’t work too well with a pre existing condition.  And it’s kind of a huge “screw you” from the church’s insurance.  I think my dad’s insurance agreed to pay part, but the rest of the cost would’ve just destroyed us financially.

I know my dad went in and threatened the stake President with going to the media and dragging the church’s reputation through the mud.

It was ugly.  I have absolutely no love for the business side of the church.  They’re jerks, they don’t care about you, you’re just a number to them—And they have to be.  With all those assets, the church needs an attack dog that’s able to unsympathetically say “no” over the phone.

This is sad but I know a family whose son is quadriplegic because of a car accident in the mission field. Similar story. She told me to never rely on church medical insurance when my son was on a mission. Maintain his policy with the family. That is easier now but back then that was difficult. They had to  be a student to stay on a policy. They were not well taken care of.

[pogi]

7 hours ago, smac97 said:

I don't understand. 
I found the Public Square Mag Q&A to be replete with explanations as to the "why"s.

• "Why does a Church need an investment management firm?"
• "Why was the SEC investigating Ensign Peak Advisors?"
• "What is form 13F, and why is it important to disclose?:
• "If nothing was hidden and the organization was legal, why was the SEC concerned?"
• "If these kinds of fines are so common, why has there been so much media coverage?"

None of that addresses why they wanted to use this scheme in the first place.  What was the intended purpose behind it?  It wasn’t used to make larger returns, or to do insider trading, or anything like that, according to Roger Clarke it was implemented to mislead and conceal in order to keep members obedient.  THAT is the big why they have neglected to answer to.

7 hours ago, smac97 said:

These parts in particular:

Funny, I found this part particularly egregious and misleading.  To suggest that there were no attempts to hide anything is a lie.  Yes, it may be true that all portfolios were reported to the SEC, but what is NOT true is that they were not hidden from being associated with and controlled by EPA and the church.  That was kind of the whole purpose as outlined in the SEC report,. They wanted to keep the public from tying these funds back to the EPA.  
 

7 hours ago, smac97 said:

No Q&A is perfect, but this one sure seems pretty good.

It was terrible.  

7 hours ago, smac97 said:

And if it happened, it was after-the-fact.

after what fact.  It was before the SEC found out, giving them an opportunity to change course before this all blew up.

7 hours ago, smac97 said:

And if it happened, "may be illegal" is cautionary, not definitive.

It was cautionary enough that honesty and integrity requires a person to do their due diligence under such cautionary warnings and clarify with the SEC if it is legal and change course if not.  Things would have been so different of it was revealed that the SEC found out only because the church wanted to be on the up and up.  Nope, instead they found out via a whistleblower website and neglected internal warnings.

7 hours ago, smac97 said:

Moreover, the PSM article notes that "{t}he regulatory systems in place by the SEC are very complex—according to one lawyer, 'some of the most complex disclosure regimes found anywhere on the planet.'"  It seems like this complexity ought to be taken into account.

Again more attempt to divert attention to the plain and simple fact that they intentionally lied on the reports that the LLCs had full control when they know that they didn’t.  Once could be a mistake.  Year after year for 20 years?  Nope.  Then they hid that information from the managers to sign off on.  Shady!

I am no expert, but I no that telling the truth on government reports is not complicated.  The fact that they haven’t been charged with a crime doesn’t mean that they didn’t intentionally lie.  The report is pretty explicit that they did.

7 hours ago, smac97 said:

And this: "There have been no allegations by the SEC of insider trading, accounting fraud, market manipulation, or other practices relating to the Church’s investment management firm."

And this: "Obviously, a fund never wants to be fined. But fines like this are common. About 5% of investment funds are fined by the SEC each year. Experts compare it to a traffic ticket."

Yes I noted all of this in my post.  I did read it, you don’t need to copy and paste it all.  The SEC stated that they went to “great lengths” to hide this from the public.  “Just like a traffic ticket” is also misleading.   The extravagant measures they took to mislead is nothing like a traffic ticket.  They have betrayed my trust, no traffic ticket has done that before.

7 hours ago, smac97 said:

I think you may be using "concealing" and "hiding" in some idiosyncratic ways

Not at all.  The SEC report was explicit about the incredible measures they took to mislead and conceal these portfolios from the public and to disassociate them from the EPA.   

Edited February 22 by pogi

[bluebell]

7 minutes ago, bsjkki said:

This is sad but I know a family whose son is quadriplegic because of a car accident in the mission field. Similar story. She told me to never rely on church medical insurance when my son was on a mission. Maintain his policy with the family. That is easier now but back then that was difficult. They had to  be a student to stay on a policy. They were not well taken care of.

The church pretty much required us to maintain my son’s insurance while he is serving. It’s a lot different than when I served two decades ago. 

[CV75]

13 hours ago, Analytics said:

In this case, the misstatements the Church has been found guilty of did not arise from error (i.e. unintentional misstatement). They arose from fraud.

Please provide the statements of guilt and fraud in the SEC's report.

[bluebell]

7 minutes ago, pogi said:

None of that addresses why they wanted to use this scheme in the first place.  What was the intended purpose behind it?  It wasn’t used to make larger returns, or to do insider trading, or anything like that, according to Roger Clarke it was implemented to mislead and conceal in order to keep members obedient.  THAT is the big why they have neglected to answer to.

Funny, I found this part particularly egregious and misleading.  To suggest that there were no attempts to hide anything is a lie.  Yes, it may be true that all portfolios were reported to the SEC, but what is NOT true is that they were not hidden from being associated with and controlled by EPA and the church.  That was kind of the whole purpose as outlined in the SEC report,. They wanted to keep the public from tying these funds back to the EPA.  
 

It was terrible.  

after what fact.  It was before the SEC found out, giving them an opportunity to change course before this all blew up.

It was cautionary enough that honesty and integrity requires a person to do their due diligence under such cautionary warnings and clarify with the SEC if it is legal and change course if not.  Things would have been so different of it was revealed that the SEC found out only because the church wanted to be on the up and up.  Nope, instead they found out via a whistleblower website and neglected internal warnings.

Again more attempt to divert attention to the plain and simple fact that they intentionally lied on the reports that the LLCs had full control when they know that they didn’t.  Once could be a mistake.  Year after year for 20 years?  Nope.  Then they hid that information from the managers to sign off on.  Shady!

I am no expert, but I no that telling the truth on government reports is not complicated.  The fact that they haven’t been charged with a crime doesn’t mean that they didn’t intentionally lie.  The report is pretty explicit that they did.

Yes I noted all of this in my post.  I did read it, you don’t need to copy and paste it all.  The SEC stated that they went to “great lengths” to hide this from the public.  “Just like a traffic ticket” is also misleading.   They have betrayed my trust.

Not at all.  The SEC report was explicit about the incredible measures they took to mislead and conceal these portfolios from the public and to disassociate them from the EPA.   

Lots of dramatic words here, and that’s why I’m hesitant to accept other people’s interpretations of the order as if they are what the SEC has alleged.

Why should we wholeheartedly accept Roger Clarke’s interpretation of motives (sincere question)?

Where does the SEC explicitly state that the church took “incredible” measures?  What would incredible measures even look like compared to adequate measures?

I appreciate ttribe’s (mostly) lack of editorializing of the report. It’s been the most helpful and the most trustworthy in my opinion.  We’ve all got our biases but all the drama isn’t useful.

[SeekingUnderstanding]

1 minute ago, CV75 said:

Please provide the statements of guilt and fraud in the SEC's report.

That would be the entire report, top to bottom. 

[CV75]

7 hours ago, smac97 said:

I think this matter has more to do with regulatory compliance, and less with "morality" or "ethics."

The Church and its members have a moral obligation to obey the law, but many laws don't have much in the way of a "moral" or "ethical" dimension.  They are just regulatory, malum prohibitum-style mechanisms for the State to manage the behavior of private citizens, and its interactions with them, and ensure compliance with the Constitution and other provisions of the law.

Nor I.  As soon as the critics who are carping on this issue start publishing the entirety of their finances and asset holdings, I'll start giving them a bit more of a listen.  Until then...

Thanks,

-Smac

I'd be happy with a simple citation from the SEC's report that uses the condemnatory terminology/interpretations the critics are using.

[CV75]

Just now, SeekingUnderstanding said:

That would be the entire report, top to bottom. 

I see. The report reads:

"Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud Guilt Fraud..."

Thank you for directing us to that.

 

[Analytics]

6 hours ago, smac97 said:

In what ways [is the "Public Square" article is deceptive in its own right]?

Thanks,

-Smac

If somebody with MBA-level background knowledge of institutional investing reads the SEC order, he'll get a very clear picture of what the order actually says and what the actual issues really are. In contrast, if somebody read the Public Square article, they'd have no clue what the order actually says and what the actual issues really are. The Public Square article doesn't clarify the announcement, it obfuscates it. For example:

1- "Why does the Church need an investment management firm?" An honest answer to that question would indicate why, in the immediate aftermath of TIME magazine's Mormon Inc. story, the Church decided to create a separate "integrated auxiliary" to perform its investment functions rather than to continue doing it in-house as it always has. Their answer is a total non-answer to why Ensign Peaks was incorporated.

2- It says, "Based on the advice of its attorneys, between 2000-2019, each subsidiary LLC had been filing its own form 13F rather than filing one aggregate form." This is dishonest. It presents the false picture that these subsidiary LLC's had legitimate reasons for existing, and that the Church was merely following the advice of its attorneys on whether or not the reports should be done at the subsidiary level or the aggregate level.

3- It then goes on to ask, "If nothing was hidden and the organization was legal, why was the SEC concerned?" The answer to this is misleading: "Because the subsidiaries were all under the control of EPA the SEC believed they needed to file one joint form 13F." This isn't merely the SEC's beliefs, it's what Section 13(f) of the Exchange Act actually says. The whole thing comes across as the Church's attorneys and the SEC having legitimately different opinions about the nuances of how reports should be filled out. That's not what this is about.

4- It is full of things like, "The Church and EPA obviously hire experts and have to rely upon those experts to give advice regarding compliance with all applicable laws and regulations, including SEC regulations." While that's true, it never explains that they also hire experts to help them concoct schemes to hide their wealth.

5- It asks, "What do this investigation and penalty say about the Church’s priorities and values?" Its answer is, "Not much. The Church invests in its fund to fulfill its mission, which in addition to its religious mission, includes humanitarian aid that totaled nearly a billion dollars last year." That answer is false. The real answer is that this investigation shows us that one of the Church's top priorities is maintaining the secrecy of its finances, and that it will go to relatively extreme lengths to do so.

The Public Square article is full of saying things the Church didn't do, (e.g. "There are no allegations that they did...There’s no allegation that they were...No accusations have been made...There have been no allegations..."). But it never explains what the SEC order actually says.

In essence, all the Public Square article says is "nothing to see here folks. Move along. Move along." If somebody were given a test about the contents of the SEC order and all they had to go on was the Public Square article, they would fail the test.

Questions Public Square Should Have Asked in Their Q&A But Didn't

1. How many LLC's did Ensign Peak Advisor create?
2. Why were these LLC's created? (A: "for the sole purpose of filing Forms 13F and preventing public disclosure by Ensign Peak of the Church’s equity securities holdings")
3. So these misstated 13F forms are the only reason these LLC's exist in the first place?
4. Did the filings contain "misstatements"?
5. Were those misstatements material?
6. Did the statements indicate that the subsidiaries "had sole investment and voting discretion over the listed securities"?
7. Why did they misstate that?
8. Why does the SEC care that 13F reports indicate who really controls the securities?
9. Did Ensign Peak do this "approach" to filing 13F's full of misstated information with the knowledge and approval of the Church?
10. Why was Ensign Peak created in 1997?
11. Was it Ensign Peak in response to the "Mormon Inc." cover story by TIME, which was published about 4 weeks before Ensign Peak was incorporated?
12. Was it created to remove assets from the Church's balance sheet so that if the Church's balance sheet became public, the Church would appear less wealthy than it really is? 
13. Why does Section 13(f) of the Exchange Act and Rule 13f-1 thereunder require that institutional investment managers file Forms 13F with the Commission on a quarterly basis if they exercise investment discretion over at least $100 million in securities?
14. Has Ensign Peak been aware of the requirement to fill out Form 13F since 1998? Did they communicate this requirement to senior leadership of the Church?
15. Why did the Church approve of Ensign Peak's "plan" of using other entities, instead of Ensign Peak, to file Forms 13F? (A: Because "the Church was concerned that disclosure of the assets in the name of Ensign Peak, a known Church affiliate, would lead to negative consequences in light of the size of the Church’s portfolio.")
16. Did the Church go to relatively extreme efforts to hide the fact that these LLC's were controlled by the Church?
17. Why did they go to these efforts? (A: After the first LLC was created, new entities were created with “better care being taken to ensure that neither the ‘Street’ nor the media [could] connect the new entity to Ensign Peak.”)
18. Why did the Church decide to clone the LLC's?
19. As they were doing this, was there primary objective transparency? Compliance with the law? Or to "strengthen the portfolio's confidentiality?"
20. What is an Investment Management Agreement (IMA)?
21. According to the LLC agreements, what was a "Business Manager", and what was the Business Manager's role?
22. Did the Business Manager ever perform any of those roles, at all?
23. Is the only thing the Business Manager do was sign the Forms 13F that were full of misstatements?
24. Were Business Managers selected based on their qualifications to manage businesses, or were they selected "because they had common names and a limited presence on social media, and were therefore less likely to be publicly connected to Ensign Peak or the Church"?
25. Did Ensign provide the Business Managers with information about the Clone LLCs they were allegedly managing or why they were created?
26. Was each Clone LLC given an address outside of Utah?
27. Did any of the Clone LLCs conduct any business at those locations?
28. Why were these "purported offices" created? Was it "to create the impression that the Clone LLCs conducted business operations throughout the U.S., making it more difficult to trace the Clone LLCs back to Ensign Peak or the Church."?
29. Were these Clone LLC's assigned local phone numbers, although there was nobody there to answer the phone?
30. Did Ensign Peak file Forms 13F with the SEC before the "Business Managers" actually signed them?
31. Did Ensign Peak allow the Business Managers to read the Form 13F they were signing, or did they just give them the signature page?
32. Did the Business Managers sign a statement each quarter that said “The institutional investment manager filing this report and the person by whom it is signed hereby represent . . . that all information contained herein is true, correct and complete[.]”?
33. Did Ensign Peak provide the business managers with sufficient information about the LLC's they were purportedly managing to make this representation?
34. Is that ethical?
35. Did the Forms 13F misstate that the Business Manager signed the forms at the fake addresses across the country where the LLCs were domiciled, even though they were all signed in Salt Lake City?
36. Did the Church and Ensign Peak understand that "Ensign Peak continued to make investment and voting decisions relating to the portfolio, and that the LLC Structure was created for the sole purpose of filing Forms 13F."
37. Did the Church Audit Department warn the Church in 2014 and 2017 that the SEC might disagree with this complicated scheme to obfuscate the Form 13F reports?
38. In May 2018 a public website reported that these various entities across the country were in all likelihood actually controlled by the Church, did any of the Business Manager's who were signing the misstated reports resign? Why did they resign?

[pogi]

43 minutes ago, bluebell said:

Lots of dramatic words here, and that’s why I’m hesitant to accept other people’s interpretations of the order as if they are what the SEC has alleged.

Then read it yourself. It's not that long.  Come to your own conclusions.  The "great lengths" they took are extremely concerning to me.  

43 minutes ago, bluebell said:

Why should we wholeheartedly accept Roger Clarke’s interpretation of motives (sincere question)?

Because he was the head/President of the EPA and would know better than anyone else, and because he was willing to go to the extent of being willing to go on record and have himself directly quoted in the Wall Street Journal knowing that the church would read it.  Why should we not trust Roger Clarke, sincere question?  Is he untrustworthy?  Does he have a bias against the church that might skew his interpretation?  The why's would have been explicitly discussed with the First Presidency - that would be kind of hard to misinterpret if it was explicitly discussed.  

43 minutes ago, bluebell said:

Where does the SEC explicitly state that the church took “incredible” measures?  What would incredible measures even look like compared to adequate measures?

I am not going to play semantics.  They said "great lengths" and then continued to outline in over 30 explicit points the details of the measures they took to mislead the public.  They lied on the reports.  They told the SEC that the LLCs had full control when they know that the EPA had full control.  They made this same "misstatement" year after year for 20 years.  That is no accident!  That is called lying.  They then attempted to hide this from managers by having them sign off on things without giving them the full report.    That is only a small taste of the incredible measures ("great lengths") they went to.  It is incredible considering the institution. 

43 minutes ago, bluebell said:

I appreciate ttribe’s (mostly) lack of editorializing of the report. It’s been the most helpful and the most trustworthy in my opinion.  We’ve all got our biases but all the drama isn’t useful.

I appreciate tribe as well, it is very helpful, but I am coming from a position of betrayed trust of an organization that I have committed my life to, please forgive the "drama" but I don't appreciate the making light of my experience and reducing it to "drama".  I am angry.  I need time to process it all.  But I honestly don't know how anyone who has read the SEC report would defensive of their actions.  It is inexcusable, yet they try to excuse it as unintentional (that is a lie) and equivalent to a traffic ticket.  That is not ok!  When is there going to be accountability for the "great lengths" they took to deceive to keep me obedient in paying tithing?  Enough with the parent child relationship!  Treat me like an adult who can do the right things for the right reasons. 

 

Edited February 22 by pogi

[Analytics]

9 hours ago, smac97 said:

I'm not sure about that.  The SEC Order seems to be functionally equivalent to a civil "Complaint" or a criminal "Information" or indictment.  As I understand it, the statements in the Order are allegations, that is, "a claim of fact not yet proven to be true."

I am open to correction on this, though.

Thanks,

-Smac

I would say that the SEC order is the result of an intense, multi-year investigation in which the Church cooperated fully. The SEC carefully went through thousands, if not tens-of-thousands, of pages of documents. Hundreds, if not thousands of hours of interviews with Church and Ensign Peak employees and leaders. The SEC probably hired its own expert consultants. They had multiple meetings with the Church, in which the Church cooperated. They laid out their concerns. They gave the Church multiple opportunities to give their side of the story and clarify any misunderstood facts. They very carefully drafted this report. They showed multiple versions of it to the Church and gave them the opportunity to correct anything that was false or misleading. The Church easily could have said things like, "We want to put this behind us, but there are a few details in the draft of the order that need to be cleaned up. Fix these items, and we'll agree to pay the penalties."

It's not at all like a civil complaint.

[theplains]

1 hour ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

The church has two very different standards of honesty. One it teaches to its members:

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-principles/chapter-31-honesty?lang=eng

“There are many other forms of lying. When we speak untruths, we are guilty of lying. We can also intentionally deceive others by a gesture or a look, by silence, or by telling only part of the truth. Whenever we lead people in any way to believe something that is not true, we are not being honest.”

And then there is a separate honesty standard they hold themselves to going back to the beginning with Joseph’s “carefully worded denials” to todays shell companies. If this behavior meets Elder Ballards “there has been no attempt on the part of the Church leaders to try to hide anything from anybody” that’s pretty gross. 

Thank you for that comparison.

Here is a snip from a BYU speech.

https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/dallin-h-oaks/honest-behavior/

A lie is not always told in so many words. It may be a creature of concealment or a 
misrepresentation by action or a half-truth. 

In the long run, the course of absolute honesty and total truthfulness is not only 
the best course but also the easiest. The person who lies and then must tell another 
lie to cover the first, and then another and another until he has built a whole 
overlapping shingled roof of lies is a person to be pitied. At some point one of 
those covering lies will be exposed, and the whole overlapping structure will come 
down with a clap of thunder like the doomsday bell. The liar’s iniquity will truly 
be “spoken upon the housetop.”

A person who is only partially honest and only partially truthful is always having 
to make hard decisions about whether each new circumstance of life calls for honesty 
or deceit. 

Edited February 22 by theplains

[ttribe]

12 minutes ago, Analytics said:

I would say that the SEC order is the result of an intense, multi-year investigation in which the Church cooperated fully. The SEC carefully went through thousands, if not tens-of-thousands, of pages of documents. Hundreds, if not thousands of hours of interviews with Church and Ensign Peak employees and leaders. The SEC probably hired its own expert consultants. They had multiple meetings with the Church, in which the Church cooperated. They laid out their concerns. They gave the Church multiple opportunities to give their side of the story and clarify any misunderstood facts. They very carefully drafted this report. They showed multiple versions of it to the Church and gave them the opportunity to correct anything that was false or misleading. The Church easily could have said things like, "We want to put this behind us, but there are a few details in the draft of the order that need to be cleaned up. Fix these items, and we'll agree to pay the penalties."

It's not at all like a civil complaint.

Indeed, I suspect (based on other experiences) that a significant portion of the language in the document may have been negotiated as part of the settlement.

[ttribe]

8 hours ago, smac97 said:

ttribe: 

This comes across as a pretty strong implication against the Church ("at best, mislead users of the filings, if not to outright defraud them").

Also ttribe: 

This comes across as you attempting to make "these acts" out to be nefarious.

Also ttribe:

Again, this comes across as accusatory.  Inculpatory.

Also ttribe:

"That's the lie."

That sounds pretty accusatory.  Condemnatory.

Compare this with Public Square Mag:

"The SEC’s claim is not that EPA’s organizational scheme was fraudulent..."

You agree with this?

"Experts compare it to a traffic ticket."

You agree with this?

You agree with these bolded statements?

You agree with these bolded statements?

Frankly, your overall assessment has been . . . pretty even-handed.  You still end up accusing the Church here and there, so the overall tenor of your participation in this thread seems to be accusatory/inculpatory.  In contrast, the Q&A from Public Square Magazine is largely explanatory and exculpatory, and you state that you "don't specifically disagree with any of it," and that it is "accurate."  So I guess I'm getting something of a mixed message here.

Thanks,

-Smac

I chose not to go into a line-by-line discussion of that article for two reasons: 1) it would turn into a morass of things like what does "the" mean in this context, etc.; and 2), I can overall not disagree with the facts of the article without getting into scraps about language that I already labeled as self-serving.

ETA: For the record, I find the 'traffic ticket' analogy rather laughable, but that's the hyperbole of attorneys and apologists that I'm rather numb to these days.

Edited February 22 by ttribe

[Analytics]

9 hours ago, smac97 said:

As an attorney, I have occasionally experienced some perceived pressure to tell a client what it wants to hear, rather than what it needs to hear. 

Ironically, last week an attorney gave me his opinion and apologized because he knew it wasn't what I wanted to hear. I said "No! What I want to hear is the truth! What you said might not be what I hoped to hear, but it is definitely what I wanted to hear."

[Snodgrassian]

10 hours ago, smac97 said:

I think you are substantially overstating things here.  Setting up LLCs is often an utterly mundane, and entirely legal and appropriate, thing to do. 

I have a client that works on house "flips."  For each and every transaction, we set up an LLC to A) hold title/ownership, B) allocate managerial authority, C) limit liability to the client, D) facilitate resolutions with borrowers, and for other legitimate reasons. 

I believe this is what most Hollywood productions do as well, The big studios set up new entities to take on the risks of the production.

@smac97 how long do these LLCs that you assist with remain open/active?

[Harry T. Clark]

This whole thing is disappointing.  The church got caught hiding its finances from the government and negotiated a fine.  It's lawyers were heavily involved in the ultimate language of the document outlining the agreement and so it is clear EP set up the LLC's with the intent to mislead.  I hope we get an apology or at least some sort of explanation in April, but, apologies lessen authority and that's a bridge they never cross.