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Berkshire pays $4.1 million fine for subsidiary's secret Iran sales Berkshire Hathaway agreed to pay a fine of $4,144,651 to settle its potential civil liability after a subsidiary in Turkey knowingly violated the U.S. trade embargo on Iran, and tried to conceal what it was doing from higher ups at the company.
In an enforcement release this week, the Treasury Department says Berkshire voluntarily told regulators about the violations after it received an anonymous tip, and then cooperated with the investigation.
(That's in keeping with Buffett's stated belief that when a company discovers bad behavior it needs to "get it right, get it fast, get it out, get it over.")
The release says that from late 2012 until early 2016, Berkshire's Iscar Turkey subsidiary supplied cutting tools and related inserts worth around $383 thousand to Turkish distributors, knowing the goods would ultimately be sold in Iran.
Under the direction of some of the subsidiary's senior managers, who were ultimately fired, employees listed "incorrect end-customer names for the majority of its orders ... in an apparent attempt to mask the Iranian end users and conceal from Berkshire and its subsidiaries that sales to Iranians were occurring."
They also used private email accounts not connected to the company to cover their tracks.
In other Berkshire legal news ... At the request of Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary Precision Castparts, a state judge in Houston dismissed its fraud lawsuit against law firm Jones Day.
The "dismissal without prejudice," however, means the suit can be refiled.
The unexplained move came after the judge temporarily sealed portions of the case in response to a claim by Jones Day that it contains proprietary information.
The $750 million suit accused the law firm of providing "substantial assistance" to Wilhelm Schulz as it hid its poor financial condition, leading Precision Castparts to pay far too much when it bought the German pipe maker in 2017.
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BERKSHIRE STOCK WATCH
BERKSHIRE'S TOP STOCK HOLDINGS - October 16, 2020
Berkshire's top stock holdings by market value, based on today's closing prices.
Holdings are as of June 30, 2020 as reported in Berkshire Hathaway’s 13F filing on August 14, 2020 and other filings, except for Bank of America, which is as of August 4, 2020, DaVita, which is as of September 17, 2020, and Wells Fargo, which is as of August 14, 2020.
The full list of holdings and current market values is available from CNBC.com's Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio Tracker.
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-- Alex Crippen, Editor, Warren Buffett Watch
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