Time Warner to Pay $510 Million in Fines

by Ed Oswald

The U.S. Government Wednesday announced that an agreement with Time Warner has been reached to settle a lawsuit alleging its AOL unit purposely inflated revenue, and will pay fines of $210 million.

The suit claimed that during the fourth quarter of 2000 and the first quarter of 2001, AOL and the now-defunct website PurchasePro.com schemed to inflate PurchasePro's revenues to shareholders and the general public.

As part of the settlement, AOL will pay the fines and take steps internally to prevent further wrongdoing. In exchange, prosecution in the case will be delayed two years.

In an unrelated case, Time Warner is also expected to dole out $300 million more to the Securities and Exchange Commission to settle impropriety charges over its buyout of AOL Europe from Bertelsmann AG.

Time Warner representatives declined to comment on the settlements.

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