Hansen Medical Inc. (NSDQ:HNSN) settled a beef with the federal Securities & Exchange Commission without admitting any wrongdoing and without paying a fine.
The Mountain View, Calif.-based medical device maker said it resolved a probe into the restatement of its financial results back in 2009. The settlement calls for Hansen to "cease and desist from committing or causing violations of the disclosure, periodic reporting, books and records and internal control provisions of the federal securities laws," according to a press release.
"In accepting the settlement, the SEC recognized the Company’s remedial actions, including the change of personnel since the events relating to the restatement surfaced, and the substantial cooperation the Company provided in connection with the SEC investigation," according to the statement.
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The SEC also leveled fraud charges against a pair of former Hansen sales executives, Christopher Sells and Timothy Murawski, accusing them of a scheme to artificially inflate company revenues.
The lawsuit (PDF), filed in the U.S. District Court for Northern California, alleges that Sells, Hansen’s former vice president of commercial operations, and sales VP Murawski, Sells’ one-time deputy, "schemed to have Hansen Medical personnel temporarily install the company’s robotic catheter system at a customer site before the customer was ready for it so that Hansen Medical could record the product sale," according to a press release.
"Hansen Medical personnel would then immediately dismantle the equipment and put it in storage until months later, when they would return to reinstall the equipment," according to the statement. "The SEC further alleges that, in a sales transaction in the final days of December 2008, Sells and Murawski instructed Hansen Medical personnel to forge a customer signature on certain required documents to allow the company to record the revenue that quarter."
Sells and Murawski allegedly aimed to avoid revenue recognition rules and fool the company’s financial gurus "into believing that the sales had been completed and revenue could be recorded," according to the agency.