US pork producer Smithfield Foods has said it received a request from the Securities and Exchange Commission to provide documents relating to the SEC’s investigation of Ahold’s US Foodservice unit.
Smithfield said it is not the focus of the investigation and it is cooperating fully with the SEC’s request.
The company said it has carried out an internal investigation into its dealings with US Foodservice and has confirmed that its accounting for those dealings is “both accurate and appropriate”.
“Therefore, we do not believe the SEC’s investigation into US Foodservice will affect our financial results,” the company was quoted by the Associated Press as saying. “We believe that the request we received is similar to others recently received by a number of other US Foodservice vendors.”
Ahold has recently revealed that accounting irregularities led to an overstatement of earnings at its US Foodservice unit of US$880m.
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