The Securities and Exchange Commission has widened its probe of AOL Time Warner Inc., investigating the company's former business relationship with a Las Vegas software firm.
Last week, AOL Time Warner chief executive Richard D. Parsons disclosed that the SEC had launched a fact-facting inquiry into the business practices of the world's largest Internet service, Dulles-based America Online. The Justice Department also is conducting a criminal investigation of the online unit, according to sources.
PurchasePro Inc., a struggling dot-com that markets business software, yesterday confirmed that it has been contacted by federal regulators as well. "As far as we know, the SEC is looking into our transaction with AOL that occurred under prior management," said PurchasePro spokesman Steve Stern. "Our accounting for this was conservative and appropriate, and we expect to hear further from the SEC shortly."
Stern also said PurchasePro began to withdraw from its AOL partnership last summer and terminated it in the fall of 2001.
AOL spokesman John Buckley declined to comment. SEC spokesman John Heine also declined comment.
News source: TechNews - SEC Expands Probe of AOL
