America Online, a unit of AOL Time Warner, is having a number of its transactions scrutinized separately by the Securities & Exchange Commission and federal prosecutors, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The SEC is undertaking a civil probe, while the U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia in Alexandria has launched a criminal investigation, the Journal said.
The Journal classified the deals as “round trips.”
“Round tripping” is a practice in which goods and services are sold back and forth between two entities at roughly the same price. This allows each partner to record higher revenue levels.
Neither the goods or services involved, nor the names of the other transaction partners, are known.
According to the article, most of the deals being examined were brokered by David Colburn, former AOL vice president. Colburn left the company earlier this month.
Whether the investigations are linked to $49 million in inappropriately classified deals AOL admitted to last week is not known.
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