The federal government is stepping up scrutiny of how U.S. companies are valued for employee-stock-ownership plans, a vital source of retirement savings for millions of workers.
Some owners are selling stakes in their companies to employee-stock-ownership plans at inflated prices, the government says, jeopardizing those savings.
The Labor Department is the plaintiff in 15 lawsuits related to employee-stock-ownership plans, with “virtually all” the cases alleging shoddy estimates of what a company’s shares are worth, said Timothy Hauser, a deputy assistant secretary at the agency’s Employee Benefits Security Administration.
“Valuation is the first, second, third and fourth problem,” Mr. Hauser said. In March, Labor Secretary Thomas Perez told lawmakers that some appraisals “have been deliberately inflated,” comparing them to real-estate-bubble-era home appraisals that “masterfully came in at what you needed.”