Comcast's CEO Roberts hit with $500,000 fine for stock deal

Here's one way to lower your tax burden at the end of the year. Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA) chief executive Brian Roberts will pay a $500,000 fine for allegedly violated pre-merger reporting and waiting requirements when he acquired Comcast voting securities related to the acquisitions of AT&T (NYSE:T)'s cable assets in 2002.

The Department of Justice said Roberts didn't comply with reporting requirements when, in 2007, he acquired Comcast voting shares. He filed a corrective statement on the share acquisition--it was part of his compensation package--in 2009.

A judge still has to okay the civil penalty for the error, which the DOJ acknowledged was inadvertent.

Roberts has twice made corrective filings regarding transactions that he acknowledged were reportable, the DOJ said.

"Comcast and Mr. Roberts appreciate the acknowledgement ... that this was a technical and inadvertent violation that was self-reported, promptly corrected and did not involve any financial gain to the company or to Mr. Roberts," Comcast said in a statement.

The Hart-Scott-Rodino Act of 1976 requires individuals and companies to abide by strict notification and a waiting period requirements before they can acquire stock or assets above a certain value, which was $59.8 million in 2007 and is currently $66 million.

Roberts took home $28.16 million in 2010.

For more:
- see this The Wrap article
- see this LA Times article

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