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22 December 2003 - The US Securities and Exchange Commission was expected to announce a legal settlement soon in its probe of Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce's ties to Enron Corp., a source familiar with the matter said on Friday.
The settlement, which could be unveiled as early as Monday, was expected to stem from an SEC inquiry into CIBC's role in complex loans made to Enron. The former energy trader's 2001 collapse was the first in a series of corporate scandals to shake US markets.
CIBC spokesman Robert Waite said the bank disclosed in its most recent financial results statement that "we were in discussions with the SEC, but those continue."
Declining to comment on the talks, Waite said no settlement had been reached and he did not know when one might be. CIBC last month said it had set aside C$49m to deal with possible fallout from regulatory investigations into its dealings with Houston, Texas-based Enron.
A SEC spokesman declined to comment.
In July, a court examiner in the Enron bankruptcy said six investment banks, including CIBC, knew of "wrongful conduct" related to Enron transactions and "aided and abetted" Enron officers in breaching their fiduciary duties.
Giant Wall Street firms Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase & Co. in July agreed to pay more than $300m to settle charges related to complex deals that the SEC said allowed Enron to hide debt and inflate cash flow.
Merrill Lynch and Co. settled with the SEC in March for $80m in a similar Enron case. Two 1999 transactions involving power-generating barges in Nigeria and a series of energy market trades were at the centre of the Merrill case.
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