Suffolk Bancorp (SUBK) in Riverhead, N.Y., has settled a longstanding lawsuit from investors.
The $1.8 billion-asset company said it had finally settled a 2011 lawsuit that alleged that executives had misrepresented Suffolk's financial condition. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, had claimed that management understated the company's loan-loss reserves in 2010 and early 2011.
In the past year, the company has hired a new chief executive and overhauled management. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency terminated a formal agreement with the company in May and the Securities and Exchange Commission ended a probe in August without taking any action.
Suffolk did not disclose how much it paid to resolve the legal claims, though Howard Bluver, the company's chief executive, said in a press release Thursday that the amount was "fully paid by our insurer."
Now that the lawsuit has been resolved, "we can now focus 100% of our attention on future growth and financial performance," Bluver said.
