Posted on 10/20/2002 10:19:29 PM PDT by Orange1998
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/021018/s_l_settlement_1.html
Texas Financier to Settle S&L Case Friday October 18, 7:04 pm ET Texas Financier Charles Hurwitz Agrees to Pay $206,000 to Settle Charges of Thrift Violations
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Texas financier Charles Hurwitz has agreed to pay $206,000 to settle regulators' charges he violated federal rules governing thrifts, the Office of Thrift Supervision announced Friday. ADVERTISEMENT
The agreement came more than a year after a judge rejected the federal agency's efforts to force Hurwitz to pay some $820 million in damages for the 1988 failure of a savings and loan, United Savings Association of Texas.
The regulators had alleged that Hurwitz and five other executives of Houston-based United Savings Association duped them and violated rules governing thrifts. United Savings was taken over by the government after its collapse.
But U.S. Administrative Law Judge Arthur Shipe recommended in September 2001 that all charges against Hurwitz and his Houston-based industrial company, Maxxam Inc., be dismissed and that the federal thrift agency not receive any monetary damages.
The $206,000 that Hurwitz, Maxxam and another company he controls, Federated Development Co., agreed to pay is in the form of restitution to the government, not damages. Hurwitz and the two companies also agreed to restrictions on any future activities with a federally insured depository institution.
Hurwitz and Maxxam -- which owns Kaiser Aluminum Corp. and Pacific Lumber Co. -- have spent 10 years and an estimated $30 million battling the regulators.
Hurwitz has long said that the case, in which formal hearings did not begin until nine years after United Savings' collapse, was a politically motivated effort to force him to relinquish control of ancient redwoods in the Headwaters Forest in California.
The federal and California governments paid $450 million to acquire 9,500 acres of the Headwaters Forest from Pacific Lumber in 1999.
Office of Thrift Supervision: http://www.ots.treas.gov
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