Church fined by SEC

[Calm]

 

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

I don’t think it was unintentional. I just think it was more an attempt at privacy rather than an attempt to deceive legal authorities. The line between hiding from the public or intending to deceive the public is partly semantics though.

This is not intended as a defense of the Church either. It is disheartening to see the Church pursuing being opaque to the public using tricks that are often meant to deceive. In many ways if it were an attempt to legally mitigate taxes it would make more sense. Using the tricks of society to shield assets (legally) might look ugly but it is reasonable. This is just an attempt to hide something that might look bad and was very clumsy.

It does, as others have pointed out, make teaching absolute honesty to the membership seem rather silly. Of course I am inclined to Hugh Nibley’s point that pursuing absolute honesty before acquiring charity is insane. If I honestly shared everything I think about people I would be much more of a net negative to society than I am now. Maybe if I ever acquire enough charity I can pull it off.

Edit: This assumes the Church didn’t do anything beyond technically violating reporting laws out of ignorance. If they did do more it is worse.

Good summary in my view.

[pogi]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

I am sorry that you are so energized about this.  I think you are letting your emotional response override a reasoned and clinical assessment.  This is evident from your stridency, your conclusory deprecations, your worst assumptions, and so on.

Thanks,

-Smac

It was my clinical assessment that lead to my emotional response.  I didn’t start out investigating this from an emotional place.  In fact, I have always defended the church’s financial practices.

The President of the EPA has every reason to defend the integrity of the EPA and the Church, I have no reason not to take him at his word when he is quoted on record.  You can dismiss him if you want, but I think THAT is an unreasonably biased position to take.  I have no reason not to give him the benefit of any doubt. 

I have stated several other specific concerns in how they went about their scheme, none of those issues have been specifically addressed.

Edited February 22, 2023 by pogi

[smac97]

On 2/22/2023 at 12:41 PM, ttribe said:

You didn't answer my question.

Frankly, I thought it was a dumb question.  But okay: "Do you also argue that publicly traded companies shouldn't have to issue publicly available financial statements?"

Publicly-traded companies should have to comply with the law.  The same goes with private companies and organizations.  This is so axiomatic as to be unworthy of discussion.  In other news, water is wet and circles are round.

Many (most?) of the regulations promulgated in and by the Administrative State are malum prohibitum.  That is, they don't really have any integral moral component to them, as opposed to laws which do have such a component (for example, criminal laws against theft, sexual assault, etc.).

We are, nevertheless, obligated to obey the laws of the land, regardless of whether they are malum prohibitum or malum in se.

"We" includes the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Some of these laws can have technically complex or ambiguous meaning and/or application.  People, including even skilled and experienced lawyers, can sometimes err in interpreting and applying these laws.

On 2/22/2023 at 12:41 PM, ttribe said:

You attacked me personally and tried to discredit me because you think I'm hostile toward the Church.

I critiqued your arguments.  

On 2/22/2023 at 12:41 PM, ttribe said:

That appears to be more bad faith argumentation on your part.  Very sorry to see you resort to that kind of rhetoric.

Meh.  I reject the charge.

On 2/22/2023 at 12:41 PM, ttribe said:

In the meantime, I hope at least someone has found some of my posts helpful on this issue.

I did.  And do.  

Again, from the PSM article:

Quote

Did Ensign Peak Advisors ever hide its stock holdings?

There are no allegations that they did. Each of EPA’s subsidiaries reported their holdings. So all of the fund’s holdings were disclosed through form 13F reports for each individual affiliated entity. EPA and the Church have stated that they believe all of their holdings were reported. 

Were the “shell companies” the EPA used illegal?

There’s no allegation that they were. These companies are the subsidiary LLCs that EPA used to reorganize in 2000. Most shell companies are used for legitimate purposes, particularly in the financial sector. They can be used to legitimately maintain the privacy of investors or better organize financial assets. The SEC’s claim is not that EPA’s organizational scheme was fraudulent, but that using that organization, EPA should have reported differently than they did.

If nothing was hidden and the organization was legal, why was the SEC concerned?

Because the subsidiaries were all under the control of EPA the SEC believed they needed to file one joint form 13F.

No accusations have been made that EPA abused the separate filings to gain advantage, but the separate filings could in theory have made it possible to do so.

Look, I get that there is a lot of emotion involved when discussing legal issues associated with the Church.  This is why I, in my very first post in this thread, stated (reiterated, actually) : "Sometimes the Church and/or its agents/representatives errs legally.  When and if that happens, and can be established through evidence and argument, the Church needs to take its legal lumps like anyone else."

But take a moment and step back and consider the context.  If Pres. Nelson had been caught on camera using a baseball bat to kneecap a random old lady on the street, or if Pres. Oaks had been recorded meeting with the mafia to collude on a protection racket, we wouldn't be having a discussion to parse things out.  Which brand of baseball bat Pres. Nelson used, or which of the old lady's knees he clobbered, or his motives for doing so, etc. would not really be part of the equation.  The distance between A) using a baseball bat to commit random and wanton physical violence and B) acknowledging the wrongfulness of that act is about 1.2 millimeters.  It takes no time at all, no effort, no reasoning, to understand - to know - that such behavior is violative of both man's laws and God's.

But that's not what we have here.

What we have is a decades-long practice. 

We have a set of behaviors associated with the Church wanting to comply with the law while maintaining its privacy as much as possible. 

We have a set of behaviors apparently recommended to EPA and the Church by attorneys (“Since 2000, Ensign Peak received and relied upon legal counsel regarding how to comply with its reporting obligations...").

We have a diverse cast of actors, working over decades (so not all in tandem with each other). 

We have a requirement by the SEC that it felt was not complied with by the Church.  The central component of that purported noncompliance was the purported failure to vest the managers of subsidiary LLCs with "investment discretion."  In retrospect, it's easy for armchair quarterbacks - particularly those with preexisting sectarian or secular hostilities to the Church regarding its religious doctrines and practices - to declare what the Church should have done, which, functionally speaking, would have been to ignore the legal advice it and EPA were given.

We have the adverse consequences of bureaucratic inertia.

We have a SEC Order, the allegations of which have neither been established nor admitted to, nor has the evidence of which allegations been presented for scrutiny, nor have the conclusions of which been reviewed and confirmed by an impartial adjudicative body (replete with Due Process, evidentiary vetting, and so on).

And on and on and on.

In sum, I think the Church sought to comply with the law, with "the law" in this setting being pretty arcane.  The Church sought legal advice regarding such compliance.  In hindsight, some of that advice was incompatible with the SEC's assessment.  The Church has now publicly acknowledged and expressed regrets for "mistakes made," has re-affirmed its "commitment to comply with the law," will pay a fine (as it should), and will move on.  The Church has not admitted (or denied) the various factual allegations presented by the SEC, and by settling the matter is not supposed to.  

People who are predisposed to view the Church in the worst possible light, who have a long track record of hostility and prejudice against a small and already relatively unpopular religious group, are obviously going to use that hostility and prejudice as a lens through which they read and interpret this story.

For myself, I won't feign impartiality.  But I'm not going to uncritically jump on the "The Church is Corrupt!" bandwagon, either.  Again, when and if the Church errs, and when that can be established through evidence and argument, the Church needs to take its legal lumps like anyone else.  That said, I am also not going to ignore the larger context, which is this: The Church is good.  It is not perfect, but it is overwhelmingly decent and well-intentioned.  Its leaders are not perfect, but they are overwhelmingly good and decent.  They want to not just mouth platitudes about obeying the law, they move heaven and earth to do so.  They are, nevertheless, running a very large and complex bureaucracy, with a lot of moving parts that do not always function with exacting precision.  

They are also virulently despised by a very vocal contingent of self-appointed opponents, who have no interest in giving the Church a fair shake or treatment, and who are giddy at the prospect of "scandal."  There is no grace from such persons.  No proportion.  No sense fair play.  Just vitriol, animus, and triumphal schadenfreude.

Thanks,

-Smac

 

Edited January 29 by smac97

[Calm]

46 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

This is also an example of why we may want to rebuild the legal system from the ground up…

If only we could…

[smac97]

12 minutes ago, Calm said:

Quote

Compliance with the law.

You need to explain that one.  What legal need was there to split off assets into other companies?

There can be a variety of ways to comply with the law.  Here, the mechanism of compliance that the Church elected to use - based on legal advice it and the EPA had received - was found problematic by the SEC.

Thanks,

-Smac

[The Nehor]

31 minutes ago, CA Steve said:

 Now that they have settled with the SEC, what difference would it make to admit to it?

I could see a confession leading to the SEC or other organizations deciding to dig deeper into related issues not related to the problems being settled or be taken as an admission of guilt in something that somehow is not protected by the settlement. The probable result of admitting they screwed up would most likely be nothing. I am a cynic though and think worst case. I think a lot of lawyers think the same way. Lawyers (speaking generally) want their clients to shut up.

[mrmarklin]

38 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

To be fair even if Church leaders wanted to confess that they screwed up badly here I suspect their lawyers would be screaming at them not to do so for fear that could be taken as admitting they legally did something wrong.

I agree with you. This is also an example of why we may want to rebuild the legal system from the ground up and admit that a system originally designed to mediate and rule between feudal warrior aristocrats may not map well onto a liberal democracy ostensibly seeking justice for all but that is a MUCH bigger discussion.

The first sentence is certainly true.  The issue in question was never litigated, nor will it be with the settlement.  Relying on counsel, many organizations litigate these issues and they can be in the court system for years, if not decades.  From the Church's POV this is not a desired result.  Every time there is a court filing, etc etc, the Church is on the front page of the SL Tribune.  I don't know, nor does anyone, what the ultimate outcome of the case would have been.  The SEC may have been slapped down for over reach, maybe even going so far as to say that the SEC has no right to even regulate churches.  Or the Church may have had "fraud" allegations against it made by the SEC.  And maybe they would have stuck.  Neither of those results would have been a desired result by the losing party.  Litigation is unpredictable.  Given the potential downside for both parties, the $5MM settlement is dogmeat compared to the hazards of the court system and the sums of money being discussed under regulatory purview.

These kinds of settlements are common and understandable.

[pogi]

58 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

To be fair even if Church leaders wanted to confess that they screwed up badly here I suspect their lawyers would be screaming at them not to do so for fear that could be taken as admitting they legally did something wrong.

I agree with you. This is also an example of why we may want to rebuild the legal system from the ground up and admit that a system originally designed to mediate and rule between feudal warrior aristocrats may not map well onto a liberal democracy ostensibly seeking justice for all but that is a MUCH bigger discussion.

They can at least be more forthcoming about why they did it, but they keep going on and on about how no attempt to conceal anything was attempted and it was all an unintentional mistake.  They can own up to a lot more than they are without legally incriminating themselves. 

It feels like "the church never hid their history" defense all over again.  It is a pattern.  If they don't own up to it, how can I trust that they are ever going to learn their lesson and that this kind of BS won't keep happening over and over and over again? 

Edited February 22, 2023 by pogi

[The Nehor]

1 minute ago, smac97 said:

There can be a variety of ways to comply with the law.  Here, the mechanism of compliance that the Church elected to use - based on legal advice it and the EPA had received - was found problematic by the SEC.

Thanks,

-Smac

And the goal posts go running down the field!

[smac97]

On 2/22/2023 at 1:07 PM, Analytics said:

What facts are disputed?

By the express terms of the SEC Order, the Church has neither admitted nor denied any of the allegations in the Order.

Perhaps you ought to revisit the meaning of "facts" relative to to "allegations."

On 2/22/2023 at 1:07 PM, Analytics said:

Did you read this?

https://bycommonconsent.com/2023/02/21/the-church-the-investment-advisor-and-the-sec/
 

Just read it now.  This part stuck out: "And here’s the thing: if EPA had actually contributed assets to these LLCs and allowed the LLCs to make investment decisions on their own, it looks to me like there would have been no SEC investigation or fine."

There is no particular "moral" component to what happened here.  It is, instead, a matter of technical (non)compliance with technical rules promulgated by Congress and the SEC.

And this part: "I’ve spent a lot of time explaining why the Sturm und Drang over the EPA’s taxes is overblown. And I stand by that."  Yep.  "Sturm und Drang" is an apt descriptor.

And this part: "But not with securities law. It’s telling that in their release, the church stated that it 'regret[s] mistakes made,' a statement that, frankly, as passive as it is, is as close to an expression of wrongdoing as I’ve heard the church make."  I have likewise noted this acknowledgement.  Several times, actually.

And this part:

Quote

But rather than comply with the law, top church leaders decided to obfuscate, to stretch the law to (or, imho, beyond) the breaking point. It’s not that mistakes were made—it’s that the church took deliberate action to do wrong.

And how should we, as active members, look at this deliberate action to do wrong? I don’t think there’s any way to justify it, and I don’t think members should be asked to justify it. After all, we believe in being honest. To receive a temple recommend, we have to affirm that we’re honest in our dealings. Seriously, honesty is such a lonely word.

And, in spite of our teachings and belief, the top church leaders chose dishonesty. They chose not only to bend the law, but to break it.

I think this is an unwarranted and unjust critique.

From the comments:

Quote

Sam, you said that they did “wrong”. But in what sense are you using the word? Was there a moral failing here?

The issue for SEC was pretty narrow, as you pointed out. It was attempting to break the fund down into smaller funds so as to attract less attention (which was perfectly legal), the only issue was maintaining investment authority over the aggregate. This seems like a pretty arcane corner of securities law. There isn’t even any allegations that doing this gave the fund an unfair advantage in practice.

(An analogous situation where a person did obtain an advantage by going through several smaller companies would be Walt Disney buying land for DisneyWorld through several shell companies. Although, in that example, I’m not sure that there is even any laws against doing that today.)

Finally, what say you to the idea that the meaning of laws isn’t fully known until they are tested? Was EPA’s reading of the statutes completely unreasonable?

And this:

Quote

Sam, you state: “But rather than comply with the law, top church leaders decided to obfuscate, to stretch the law to (or, imho, beyond) the breaking point. It’s not that mistakes were made—it’s that the church took deliberate action to do wrong.” However, you chose not to include the portion of the Church’s statement that it relied on legal advice in making its decision regarding how to comply with SEC reporting requirements. As a lawyer, you know that neither the fact that the SEC alleged that the Church’s actions were non-compliant, nor the Church’s offer to settle the allegation by paying a fine is equal to a legal determination that the actions did, in fact, violate applicable laws. When evaluating their legal obligations, organizations frequently rely on legal advice from their attorneys. If a government agency challenges the organization’s action, it is not at all unusual for the organization to settle with the agency rather than to become involved in expensive and time-consuming administrative or legal proceedings.

And this:

Quote

Sam,

“church leaders knew what they wanted, and that was to avoid mandated disclosure.”

And apparently all they would have had to do differently in order to gain this desire without falling out of compliance would have been to devolve investment authority to the LLCs, right?

Notably, Sam responds to this last comment as follows:

Quote

Mike, I think so. It still may have looked bad, but as far as I can see, it would have complied with the letter, and probably the spirit, of the law.

Huh.  So Sam's condemnatory comments would have been utterly misguided if the Church had "devolve{d} investment authority to the LLCs."

That's the moral yardstick being used?  Seriously?

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited January 29 by smac97

[SeekingUnderstanding]

8 minutes ago, smac97 said:

would have been to ignore the legal advice it and EPA were given.

For one who purports to look at this as logically as possible, I think you should view the statement from the church where they place blame on the lawyers much more carefully. The church has a long history of carefully worded denials, as well as going to great lengths to hide things they want to keep hidden. In that light, I have no doubt they sought legal counsel, but highly doubt your representation of it here is accurate. 

[mrmarklin]

2 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

From your link ““It goes back to the concept of this as a case against a major religious institution,” said Jacob Frenkel, chair of the government investigations and securities enforcement practice at ****inson Wright LLP. “If this had been anyone else, it is reasonable to believe that the SEC likely would have charged an anti-fraud violation.””

This is an opinion, and nothing to do with the reality of settling the case.   At the SEC the opinion was different.  If anything, because of who it was the SEC probably would have liked to prosecute.  They like high profile cases.

My opinion is that fraud would have been a serious stretch, since the Church did disclose all 13F requirements and relied on counsel in doing so.  Maybe you could sue the lawyers for giving bad advice.

Edited February 22, 2023 by mrmarklin

[The Nehor]

1 minute ago, pogi said:

They can at least be more forthcoming about why they did it, but they keep going on and on about how no attempt to conceal anything was attempted and it was all an unintentional mistake.  They can own up to a lot more than they are without incriminating themselves.  

It feels like "the church never hid their history" defense all over again.  It is a pattern. 

I don't disagree in general.

I think the church hiding their history is more complex as many members resisted more open sharing of a lot of history when the church experimented with it at times. Many still do.

I think their comment on not meaning to conceal anything is a half-truth. If taken as not wanting to hide it from government regulations it is partially true (they did submit the reports incorrectly) but suggesting that this was not an attempt to keep it out of view from the public is almost certainly a big whopper of a lie. I would be open to an alternative explanation but I haven't heard one. The only defense so far given is smac's Soviet-style whataboutism comparing a non-profit's investment fund to a household budget. If there was a better alternative explanation it is pretty clear no one here has any idea what it might be.

I get why the Church wanted to keep it out of sight but pretending they were being transparent is just silly.

[Calm]

6 minutes ago, smac97 said:

There can be a variety of ways to comply with the law.  Here, the mechanism of compliance that the Church elected to use - based on legal advice it and the EPA had received - was found problematic by the SEC.

Thanks,

-Smac

When you say “comply with the law”, do you mean going ahead and doing something you want to do but trying to not break any laws while you are doing it or do you mean doing something because the law requires it?

I don’t see EPA dividing assets with the clone LLC as being required in order to obey the law.  
 

The question was “what was the reason EPA set up 13 LLCs?” 

Do you mean by your answer since they wanted to make it look that the Church owned less than it did, they could have done it by just dropping the names off EPA’s public records, but they chose to comply with the law and so did it by creating clone companies that existed just for that purpose?

I can’t think of another way your answer makes sense.

[SeekingUnderstanding]

3 minutes ago, mrmarklin said:

and relied on counsel in doing so.  Maybe you could sue the lawyers for giving bad advice.

I think you should view the statement from the church where they place blame on the lawyers much more carefully. The church has a long history of carefully worded denials, as well as going to great lengths to hide things they want to keep hidden. In that light, I have no doubt they sought legal counsel, but highly doubt your representation of it here is accurate. 

[smac97]

1 hour ago, Teancum said:

Quote

Compliance with the law.

Good lord.  No. It was to hide their assets levels. 

Oh brother.  Yes, it was to comply with the law.  There is nothing wrong with using legal means to maintain privacy.

Thanks,

-Smac

[smac97]

1 hour ago, Teancum said:

Quote

So in your view a "report" from the SEC, without more, is an adjudication of disputed facts?

I can only read their opinion.  Did you?

I did.

Again, in your view is a "report" from the SEC, without more, is an adjudication of disputed facts?

Thanks,

-Smac

[SeekingUnderstanding]

1 minute ago, smac97 said:

Oh brother.  Yes, it was to comply with the law.  There is nothing wrong with using legal means to maintain privacy.

Thanks,

-Smac

Except it was illegal…

[The Nehor]

19 minutes ago, smac97 said:

There is no particular "moral" component to what happened here.  It is, instead, a matter of technical (non)compliance with technical rules promulgated by Congress and the SEC.

You are arguing that there is no moral component because the violation of the law was technical. That is an "apples and oranges" comparison. A lot of things that are legal are immoral.

I am not sure if hiding assets from public view is moral or not. I don't think the church's statement is honest. I treat it the way I would treat an equivalent statement from a corporation that got caught insisting they didn't mean to obscure anything. I don't believe either but then I never hoped for honesty from the PR flaks of most corporations and their local representatives also don't ask me every few years if I am "honest in my dealings" either and expect me to honestly answer them.

Edited February 22, 2023 by The Nehor

[pogi]

13 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

I think their comment on not meaning to conceal anything is a half-truth. If taken as not wanting to hide it from government regulations it is partially true (they did submit the reports incorrectly) but suggesting that this was not an attempt to keep it out of view from the public is almost certainly a big whopper of a lie.

I agree completely. 

[smac97]

4 minutes ago, Calm said:

When you say “comply with the law”, do you mean going ahead and doing something you want to do but trying to not break any laws while you are doing it or do you mean doing something because the law requires it?

I'm not sure what you mean.

The Church had a few options available, but I don't think it considered any of them to be violative of the law.  The Church wanted, and wants, to maintain some privacy, within the confines of the law.  There are a variety of ways to do that.  In hindsight, the SEC felt that the option the Church selected - based on legal advice given to it and to EPA - was problematic.

4 minutes ago, Calm said:

I don’t see EPA dividing assets with the clone LLC as being required in order to obey the law.  

Not "required," no.  But allowed under the law?  Yes, with the requisite authority re: investment discretion, which apparently did not happen here.  From the comments of Sam Brunson's BCC article:

From "Mike Sanders":

Quote

Sam,

“church leaders knew what they wanted, and that was to avoid mandated disclosure.”

And apparently all they would have had to do differently in order to gain this desire without falling out of compliance would have been to devolve investment authority to the LLCs, right?

From Sam:

Quote

Mike, I think so. It still may have looked bad, but as far as I can see, it would have complied with the letter, and probably the spirit, of the law.

MoPo, does it matter? I mean yes, I think people were hurt, but I also don’t see how that affects the fact that EPA, under church direction, violated the law.

To answer Sam, yes, I think it matters.  If the Church ostensibly "violated the law," then it ought to be held to account for that.  But if the Church violated the law by relying on legal advice regarding compliance with reporting requirements, then I think that is a pretty big mitigating factor.

I previously commented on how the Church had successfully arranged things with LDS Charities Australia by, in part, devolving decision-making authority to people situated physically in Australia (as required by the law in Australia).  That seems functionally equivalent to what the Church - in hindsight - ought to have done with the LLCs in this matter.  And if it had done so, then per Sam Brunton the Church "would have complied with the letter, and probably the spirit, of the law."

This is a key component of why I view this a bureaucratic/managerial failing, not a moral/spiritual one.  

4 minutes ago, Calm said:

The question was “what was the reason EPA set up 13 LLCs?” 

To comply with the reporting requirements of the law (while still maintaining the Church's privacy).

4 minutes ago, Calm said:

Do you mean by your answer since they wanted to make it look that the Church owned less than it did,

I don't think the Church wants to publicize things it has no duty to publicize.  I would not characterize that as the Church wanting "to make it look that the Church owned less than it did."

If you decline to publish your personal finances online, that is not necessarily because you want "to make it look" that you own less than you actually do.  You just don't want your private information published to the world.  And absent a legal requirement, you have the right to abstain from or minimize such public declarations.

Thanks,

-Smac

[smac97]

13 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Quote

Oh brother.  Yes, it was to comply with the law.  There is nothing wrong with using legal means to maintain privacy.

Except it was illegal…

Perhaps.  Perhaps not.  There has been no adjudication of the matter.

My point, though, was that the Church sought legal advice as to how "to comply with the law."  This advice was apparently - and in hindsight - either erroneous or incomplete.  See my quotes above from the "Comments" section of Sam Brunson's article.  

There is a book you may want to consider reading: Three Felonies A Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent

From the Amazon summary:

Quote

The average professional in this country wakes up in the morning, goes to work, comes home, eats dinner, and then goes to sleep, unaware that he or she has likely committed several federal crimes that day. Why? The answer lies in the very nature of modern federal criminal laws, which have exploded in number but also become impossibly broad and vague. In Three Felonies a Day, Harvey A. Silverglate reveals how federal criminal laws have become dangerously disconnected from the English common law tradition and how prosecutors can pin arguable federal crimes on any one of us, for even the most seemingly innocuous behavior. The volume of federal crimes in recent decades has increased well beyond the statute books and into the morass of the Code of Federal Regulations, handing federal prosecutors an additional trove of vague and exceedingly complex and technical prohibitions to stick on their hapless targets. The dangers spelled out in Three Felonies a Day do not apply solely to “white collar criminals,” state and local politicians, and professionals. No social class or profession is safe from this troubling form of social control by the executive branch, and nothing less than the integrity of our constitutional democracy hangs in the balance.

Thanks,

-Smac

[smac97]

28 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Quote

would have been to ignore the legal advice it and EPA were given.

For one who purports to look at this as logically as possible, I think you should view the statement from the church where they place blame on the lawyers much more carefully.

Okay.

28 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

The church has a long history of carefully worded denials,

Meh.  You're just poisoning the well here.

28 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

as well as going to great lengths to hide things they want to keep hidden.

Oh my stars and garters!  Privacy?  How dare they?

Please blaze the trail you think the Church ought to take.  What is your real name?  Your address?  Phone number?  Email address?  Where do you bank?  What are your assets?  What is your Social Security Number?  What are your logins and passwords for email provider, bank websites, etc.?

Surely you are not going to "{go} to great lengths to hide things they want to keep hidden" by not immediately publishing these things to the world?  "Sauce for the goose" and all that.

28 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

In that light, I have no doubt they sought legal counsel, but highly doubt your representation of it here is accurate. 

Quelle surprise.

Thanks,

-Smac

[smac97]

19 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Quote

There is no particular "moral" component to what happened here.  It is, instead, a matter of technical (non)compliance with technical rules promulgated by Congress and the SEC.

You are arguing that there is no moral component because the violation of the law was technical.

No.  I am saying there is no particular moral component to the 13F reporting requirements because those requirements are, in my view, based on the concept of malum prohibitum, rather than malum in se.

19 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

That is an "apples and oranges" comparison.

You have not understood my position.

19 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

A lot of things that are legal are immoral.

Sure.  But I don't see anything "immoral" in what the Church did.  

Take a look at my quotes from Sam Brunson.

19 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

I am not sure if hiding assets from public view is moral or not.

I think you are using "hiding assets from public view" in a pretty arbitrary and idiosyncratic way.

"Hiding" seems to connote some sort of obligation to disclose.  Absent such an obligation, "hiding" is an absurd and overwrought term.  For example, I do not know your bank account login, but I would not characterize this has you "hiding" your login "from public view."  Absent a duty to disclose, such a characterization would be unfair and unreasonable.

19 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

I don't think the church's statement is honest. I treat it the way I would treat an equivalent statement from a corporation that got caught insisting they didn't mean to obscure anything. I don't believe either but then I never hoped for honesty from the PR flaks of most corporations and their local representatives also don't ask me every few years if I am "honest in my dealings" either and expect me to honestly answer them.

You are, of course, entitled to your opinion.  I do not share it.

Thanks,

-Smac

[SeekingUnderstanding]

5 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Please blaze the trail you think the Church ought to take.  What is your real name?  Your address?  Phone number?  Email address?  Where do you bank?  What are your assets?  What is your Social Security Number?  What are your logins and passwords for email provider, bank websites, etc.?

Is the church being asked to provide all that?
 

The equivalent to bank passwords? Really? And you wonder why no one but your cheerleaders take you seriously?

There is nothing wrong with privacy. But Church leaders want to claim that the church isn’t wealthy. (https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2006/04/our-sacred-priesthood-trust?lang=eng). Church leaders want to say “we are not a wealthy people” (https://news-zw.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/elder-andersen-meets-with-zimbabwes-vice-president-mohadi-pledges-support). Meanwhile they are doing everything they can to obscure their vast wealth. 

Elder Ballard says:  “Just trust us, wherever you are in the world, and you share this message with anyone else who raises the question about the Church not being transparent. We’re as transparent as we know how to be in telling the truth. We have to do that; that’s the Lord’s way.”

Transparent organizations don’t create 13 shell companies to make sure no one finds out how much they’re worth. Is transparent honesty the lords way or not? 
 

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