Evergreen Settles Market-Timing Charges for $32.5M

Evergreen Investments, a unit of Wachovia, settled market-timing charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission for $32.5 million, and former Evergreen Senior Vice President William Ennis also agreed to pay $150,000 to settle related charges.

In January 2000, the SEC said, Ennis permitted a registered rep at Wachovia Securities to market time a few of the Evergreen funds. In the Evergreen Small Company Growth Fund, for instance, the registered rep made 386 exchanges into and out of the fund between January 2001 and March 2003.

Evergreen Chief Executive Officer Dennis Ferro posted a letter on the company’s website saying that most of the improper trading took place before 2000, at which time the company improved controls to prevent market timing.