The Coca-Cola Co. agreed last week to make changes to its compliance procedures to settle charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission that the world’s largest soft drink maker engaged in “channel stuffing” to inflate its sales numbers for several years in the late 1990s.
The SEC alleged that, during a three-year period, Coke asked bottlers in Japan to purchase additional quantities of cola concentrate in order to boost the company’s revenues and help it meet profit goals.
