SEC Charges Underwriter and Its Former CEO With Misconduct In Muni Bond Tender Offer

The Securities and Exchange Commission today instituted settled charges against Crews & Associates Inc., an Arkansas-based broker-dealer, and its former CEO, Rush F. Harding III, for unfair dealing in connection with a municipal bond tender offer. The SEC's orders find that Crews, at Harding's direction, recommended to a county in West Virginia that the county attempt to reduce the amount of its outstanding debt service expense through a tender offer for bonds it had issued years earlier. According to the orders, in the months following the discussions of the tender offer, Crews, with Harding's approval, purchased millions of dollars of the county's outstanding bonds and sold them to an entity affiliated with Crews and to Crews' customers.