Waste Management founder, former top officers settle with SEC

John T. Fakler
South Florida Business Journal
August 29, 2005

The Securities and Exchange Commission said Friday final judgments of $30.86 million are entered against the founder of Waste Management and three former top officers. Dean L. Buntrock, Philip B. Rooney, Thomas C. Hau and Herbert A. Getz are the settling defendants. They consented to the judgments without admitting or denying the allegations in the agency's complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

The complaint charged the former officers with perpetuating a massive financial fraud lasting more than five years. The SEC alleged the defendants engaged in a systematic scheme to falsify and misrepresent Houston-based Waste Management's (NYSE: WMI) financial results with profits overstated by $1.7 billion. The trash hauling firm restated its financials in 1998. At the time, it was the largest restatement in history.

Buntrock was the company's founder, chairman and chief executive officer during the relevant period, which began in 1992 and continued into 1997. He is also a relation by marriage to Fort Lauderdale entrepreneur H. Wayne Huizenga, another Waste Management founder. Rooney was the company's president and COO. Hau was corporate controller and chief accounting officer. Getz was general counsel and secretary.

The judgments permanently bar the former officers from acting as an officer or director of a public company. They also enjoin the men from future violations of antifraud and federal securities laws. The $30.86 million payment is for disgorgement, interest and civil penalties.

Billionaire Huizenga doesn't have anything to do with the suit, though. The entrepreneur began his career managing three garbage collection routes in South Florida. His company merged with a garbage business in Chicago to form Waste Management. Buntrock, who had married one of Huizenga's cousins, combined his company with Huizenga's in 1968. That merger formed Waste Management Inc. and, in 1971, they took the company public.

By 1981, the firm was the world's largest waste disposal company. Two years later, Huizenga retired from Waste Management with stock and options valued at $23 million. Waste Management remains the largest trash collector in Florida and the United States with $12.8 billion in revenue last year.