Infinium Labs CEO plays down SEC filing

Infinium Labs CEO Kevin Bachus has downplayed the Securities and Exchange Commission's decision to investigate the company over alleged legal violations and unpaid taxes.

The SEC last week announced plans to bring charges against former CEO Tim Roberts for violating federal securities law. Although specific details of the charges were not revealed, Infinium has said it believes they are connected with a recent SEC enquiry into "phony fax scams," where penny stocks were illegally advertised to investors.

The SEC also claims that Infinium did not keep accurate payroll and tax records during Roberts' reign. According to the commission's filing, "We accrued payroll and payroll taxes of USD at 834,682 at December 31, 2004 and USD 1,225,903 at June 30, 2005."

"These amounts did not include interest and penalties. As a result, we believe that the recorded amounts should have been approximately double that which was actually recorded."

As a result, Infinium faces fines and interest payments of up to USD 1.2 million and has warned investors to ignore previously issued financial forecasts.

But Bachus, who took over from Roberts in August, said the company is not at risk of collapse as a result, and that Infinium is planning to work out a payment schedule with the IRS. Speaking to US website Gamespot, he said that this is "part of a process that's designed to address any deficiencies that exist."

"Evidently, as part of their investigation, the SEC has concluded that Tim [Roberts] has done something wrong. We don't know what it was. I don't know if Tim even knows what it was."

Bachus said Infinium had now "looked at everything can we can think to look at" and didn't expect to find anything more - "But I didn't expect to find this, either," he added.

The future of Infinium Labs' games-on-demand Phantom service is now in doubt once again. After the system was a no-show at E3 in May, Bachus confirmed that it would launch in the US "later this year" - something which looks increasingly unlikely.