The Lord was behind the recent financial fraud scandal.

[Dr. Shades]

Somewhere in the back of my mind is the thought why doesn’t the church help teach her members how to invest their personal wealth wisely.

Because the first step to investing personal wealth wisely is to stop paying tithing. . . and the church definitely doesn't want its members to find that out.

[Philo Sofee]

As a reminder…this is what the Church confessed to doing…

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced charges against Ensign Peak Advisers Inc., a non-profit entity operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to manage the Church’s investments, for failing to file forms that would have disclosed the Church’s equity investments, and for instead filing forms for shell companies that obscured the Church’s portfolio and misstated Ensign Peak’s control over the Church’s investment decisions. The SEC also announced charges against the Church for causing these violations. To settle the charges, Ensign Peak agreed to pay a $4 million penalty and the Church agreed to pay a $1 million penalty.

In a new essay the leaders of the Church lay the blame for the scheme to hide funds and defraud the SEC firmly on The Lord.

All financial matters in the Church are ultimately subject to the Lord’s direction through His chosen leaders.

So there you have it, The Lord directed his leaders to come up with a complex and deliberate system of defrauding the SEC and misleading the membership as to the state of the Church’s finances.

They even throw Jesus under the bus.....

You can't make this stuff up.

[I Have Questions]

On the other hand, in this particular case, it is possible that some at Ensign Peak and within the First Presidency had their concerns about investments and what legal counsel was telling them...but I don't know that we'll ever really know.

I don't think it really matters at this point.

MG, you're right. It doesn't matter if it's "possible that some at Ensign Peak and within the First Presidency had their concerns about investments and what legal counsel was telling them."

Despite that, I wonder what makes you think that they might have.

Like you, I guess that anything is possible. As you imply, what really matters is what the First Presidency ultimately did, and for how long they did it. Everything else is speculation. These are grown men who say that they're daily talking to God. These are men with access to the best advice that money can buy and God can give. It's hard to sympathize with their plight.

The SEC Cease & Desist order clearly states that they found the Church Leadership (First Presidency) unanimously approved each and every fraudulent action. That’s “unanimously”.

[I Have Questions]

People assume they used outside counsel - Kirton McConkie - to “rely” upon, but it’s entirely possible they didn’t hire Kirton McConkie to advise on this illegal scheme. I say this because no credible law firm with securities practice attorneys would ever EVER endorse a 13F filing scheme that depended on committing federal document perjury.

I think it’s far more plausible they had one or two internal staff attorneys give a nod, probably guys who had no clue about securities markets or SEC compliance. And with those unnamed patsies, you have the vague, chicken-sh** statement that church leaders “received and relied upon legal counsel.”

There is no God in the universe who is pleased with the matter. Except Loki, I suppose.

Reading the SEC findings they don’t mention outside counsel at all. They say the idea of committing securities fraud came from within Ensign Peak, was discussed with the First Presidency, who agreed it. Further, they unanimously signed off on each and every shell company origination.

[I Have Questions]

And despite being caught red handed, they are now trying to portray to the membership that they can trust the leadership to do the right thing with donated funds because The Lord is behind ALL financial decisions.

And get this, nobody was sacked over it, nobody was removed from their calling over it, and nobody had the integrity or moral fibre to resign over it.

I think two people in Ensign Peak who were managing the fake clone companies did resign or asked to be replaced when the figured out what was going on. I am not sure if they quit or are still working some other role. My guess is they were sent packing. The church doesn't tolerate disobedience.

Yes, they flagged the wrongdoing and resigned. Instead of correcting the problem, two more obediently morally corrupt money managers were found to replace them.

I’m surprised Ensign Peak kept whatever licenses it needs to operate in financial markets, given their willful systemic dishonesty across decades at the unanimous behest of multiple First Presidencies.

[I Have Questions]

You’d think that being caught red handed committing securities fraud would have been enough for the First Presidency to cease and desist any and all willful misreporting. But no. In yet another example that the Church only does the right thing when forced to do so…

Investment managers for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints face fresh allegations they dodged federal reporting laws in connection with the Utah-based faith’s mammoth stock portfolio.

The new assertions involve Ensign Peak Advisors, the church’s investment arm, and a period between 2002 and 2019, when federal regulators have previously said the two sought to obscure the breadth and depth of the faith’s portfolio by spreading it among more than a dozen separately reporting shell companies.

That behavior — which regulators say effectively let Ensign Peak avoid attention by evading a $100 million reporting threshold on its holdings — led to a $5 million settlement last year with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Ensign Peak paid $4 million; the church $1 million.

Those same securities laws enforced by the SEC also require that institutional investors report — through filings under what is known as Schedule 13G — when they hold 5% or more of outstanding shares of a publicly traded company’s stock.

Analysts with The Widow’s Mite Report website say they have found at least seven instances in which the combined shares held by Ensign Peak in a handful of public stocks through those shell LLCs exceeded that 5% threshold — without the firm filing 13G forms.

The investment firm’s stock trading patterns at the time, according to the site, also reveal that Ensign Peak may have been aware its ownership had climbed above the 5% reporting trigger. It appears, Widow’s Mite added, that this failure to report to regulators “was not accidental.”

The site’s authors called Ensign Peak’s alleged violations of 13G rules “another indicator of decades of poor internal controls and a top-down policy of ‘selective compliance’ among church investment entities.”

Here is the link to the relevant Widows Mite page…

https://thewidowsmite.org/13g/

[Dr Moore]

People assume they used outside counsel - Kirton McConkie - to “rely” upon, but it’s entirely possible they didn’t hire Kirton McConkie to advise on this illegal scheme. I say this because no credible law firm with securities practice attorneys would ever EVER endorse a 13F filing scheme that depended on committing federal document perjury.

I think it’s far more plausible they had one or two internal staff attorneys give a nod, probably guys who had no clue about securities markets or SEC compliance. And with those unnamed patsies, you have the vague, chicken-sh** statement that church leaders “received and relied upon legal counsel.”

There is no God in the universe who is pleased with the matter. Except Loki, I suppose.

Reading the SEC findings they don’t mention outside counsel at all. They say the idea of committing securities fraud came from within Ensign Peak, was discussed with the First Presidency, who agreed it. Further, they unanimously signed off on each and every shell company origination.

This is such an important point. Ensign Peak committed the perjury, not the FP or anyone in church leadership. So if they could have blamed legal advice for approving the illegal activity, 100% they would have done so. That $1m fine to the church itself, attributed to the FP specifically for “causing” bad things to happen is by far the worst of the penalties.

[Mag’ladroth]

Reading the SEC findings they don’t mention outside counsel at all. They say the idea of committing securities fraud came from within Ensign Peak, was discussed with the First Presidency, who agreed it. Further, they unanimously signed off on each and every shell company origination.

This is such an important point. Ensign Peak committed the perjury, not the FP or anyone in church leadership. So if they could have blamed legal advice for approving the illegal activity, 100% they would have done so. That $1m fine to the church itself, attributed to the FP specifically for “causing” bad things to happen is by far the worst of the penalties.

“We can also intentionally deceive others by a gesture or a look, by silence, or by telling only part of the truth. Whenever we lead people in any way to believe something that is not true, we are not being honest.” (Gospel Principles Manual)

Wait a minute, lying for the Lord is still acceptable right? I mean as long as the FP says they were doing it to prevent “persecution” it’ll be ok right?

[Moksha]

Wait a minute, lying for the Lord is still acceptable right? I mean as long as the FP says they were doing it to prevent “persecution,” it’ll be ok, right?

There is an apostolic saying, "Credit is to be given to us, but wrongdoing must be passed on to the Lord".

[Dr Exiled]

The Fund shall be protected and his servants shall comply. Yea, the ends justifieth the means sayeth the Lord. And the lawyers and accountants gathereth and give alms to the Lord and changeth the financial statements in His name and payeth the fees to the SEC and fund political campaigns in abundance. And the Lord smiled upon his servants and the stock gains increased.