Commercial printer Moore Wallace Inc. has suspended chief financial officer Mark Hiltwein, with pay, stemming from his reaction to a whistle-blower’s charges.
In late December the company received an anonymous letter alleging misuse of acquisition-related restructuring charges and other accounting-related actions. At the direction of the company’s audit committee, PricewaterhouseCoopers immediately began an independent review of the charges in the letter. The company, based in Mississauga, Ontario, but operated from Stamford, Connecticut, also forwarded the allegations to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Ontario Securities Commission, and the New York Stock Exchange.
By the time the audit firm largely completed its work, continued the company, PwC had “found no evidence to support these allegations.” Moore Wallace added that although the company and its outside auditors were satisfied with the level of documentation supporting the restructuring charges, PwC asked the company’s accounting staff, including Hiltwein, for any additional materials they may have had.
On Thursday of last week, continued the company, Hiltwein directed another member of the accounting staff to send to PwC a memorandum about the company’s restructuring processes and plans. Although the memorandum’s dateline was “May 2003,” noted Moore Wallace, it was created by Hiltwein last week and appears to be documentation of the kind PricewaterhouseCoopers was requesting.
“PricewaterhouseCoopers detected that the document had been created later than the dateline of the memorandum,” stated the company.
The company stressed that it has spoken to Hiltwein, who stated that the dating of the document reflected poor judgment but was not the product of any intention to deceive PwC, the audit committee, or anyone else. Moore Wallace CEO Mark A. Angelson said in a statement that “Mark Hiltwein’s suspension should not be viewed as a conclusion that he acted with an intention to deceive.” However, he did add that Hiltwein’s conduct “was unacceptable.”
The announcement of Hiltwein’s suspension came the same day that Moore Wallace received approval from Canadian securities officials for its proposed takeover by R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co. Based on information available to the company to date, added Moore Wallace, it does not appear that this matter will impact the company’s financial statements.
Hiltwein has been replaced as CFO on an interim basis by senior executive vice president James R. Sulat, who has served as CFO of Chiron Corp. and of Stanford Health Services.
The member of the accounting staff who acted at Hiltwein’s direction, and who has not been identified, has also been suspended with pay pending completion of the investigation of the misdated document.