Bill Gates to Pay $800,000 for Alleged Filing Violation

Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates agreed to pay an $800,000 penalty to settle charges that he violated reporting requirements involving his personal investment company, the Justice Department said Monday.

The charges aren’t related to Gates’ position in Microsoft or to the Justice Department’s antitrust suit against the company.

The government said Gates, through his Cascade Investment firm, bought more than $50 million of voting shares of Icos Corp., a pharmaceutical company based in Bothell, Wash., without abiding by notification and waiting-period requirements for investments that exceed $50 million.

The $800,000 penalty, if approved by a federal judge, would settle the charges.

“At no time was Mr. Gates personally involved in these matters,” said Mark Beatty, general counsel for Cascade. Beatty said in a statement that the company missed a required filing and then “voluntarily notified” the government “of our mistake.”

Gates was involved in a similar alleged reporting violation in 2001 that was settled without penalty, the Justice Department said. The department’s antitrust division filed the current civil charges against Gates at the request of the Federal Trade Commission.

According to the complaint, Gates has been a director of Icos since 1990. On May 9, 2002, Gates, through Cascade, bought 328,000 shares of Icos. That gave him more than 5.3 million shares of Icos voting securities, valued at more than $129.6 million. Gates waited until July 25, more than six weeks later, to file the notification required under the law, the complaint says.