Wilmington Trust, a Delaware-based bank holding company owned by M&T Bank Corporation, agreed to pay $18.5 million to settle with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which charged the company with accounting and disclosure fraud for failing to properly report loans that were not being paid off after the financial crisis, the SEC announced Thursday.
The SEC found that while the real estate market was falling 2009 and 2010, Wilmington Trust’s construction loans were starting to mature without being repaid or the projects finishing. But the company did not renew, extend, or take other action for 90 days or more on a material amount of its matured loans, the SEC said. Instead of revealing the amount of these growing loans, which is mandated by accounting guidance rules, the company allegedly left these loans out of its public financial reporting.
