Comcast’s Brian Roberts Fined $500K in Anti-Trust Case

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WASHINGTON: Brian Roberts, the CEO of Comcast Corporation, will pay a $500,000 civil penalty to settle anti-trust charges that he violated pre-merger stock-buying rules.

The U.S. Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, at the request of the Federal Trade Commission, filed a lawsuit against Roberts for failing to comply with pre-merger notification requirements, and separately proposed a settlement, which requires court approval.

The violation is of the Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Act of 1976, which imposes notification and waiting-period requirements on individuals or companies over a certain size before they can start acquiring stock or assets above a certain value.

In October 2007, Roberts failed to adhere to notification procedures after acquiring shares of Comcast as part of his compensation package, according to the complaint. In August 2009, Roberts made a corrective filing for Comcast voting securities he had acquired, meaning that he acknowledged that he failed to properly report the purchase. Although this is the first time Roberts has been charged with an HSR Act violation, previously he had twice made corrective filings regarding transactions that he acknowledged were reportable under the HSR Act. In both cases Roberts said that the failures to file and observe the waiting period were unintentional.