Additionally, the luxury carmaker allegedly paid dealers to inaccurately designate vehicles as “demonstrators” or “loaners” so that the company could falsely use them in their sales counts as sold to customers.
Furthermore, the SEC alleged that BMW North America “improperly” adjusted its retail sales reporting in 2015 and 2017 to meet internal sales targets or bank excess retail sales for future use, the SEC said.
Moreover, the SEC alleged that BMW provided inaccurate and misleading information regarding its U.S. subsidiary’s retail vehicle sales to bond investors, credit reporting agencies, and initial purchasers.
Using materially inaccurate and misleading information, BMW raised approximately $18 billion through seven bond offerings in the U.S. capital markets from 2016 to 2019.
In a statement, SEC Enforcement Division Director Stephanie Avakian said, “Companies accessing US markets to raise capital have an obligation to provide accurate information to investors.”
BMW cooperated in the SEC probe
The SEC took into consideration the company-wide cooperation with its investigation in settling the charges against the German automaker and its U.S. subsidiaries.
