Coke is it

The SEC concluded that COKE pressured some of its bottlers to buy extra concentrate during the period of 1997 to 1999. It has been a long time (probably since the Chainsaw Al days at Sunbeam) that I have heard of a case of "channel Stuffing" to inflate profits. An excellent book about these types of frauds (and oh to be clear "Coke niether admitted or denied the SEC charges") is The Financial Numbers Game by Charles Mulford and Gene Comiskey, which examines all types of scams.

Here is some information from the WSJ article on the transactions:

During the period in question, growing competition and economic volatility around the world was making it increasingly tough for Coke to meet earnings targets. Coke offered the bottlers favorable credit terms, and their inventory levels surged 62% during the three-year period, compared with an 11% increase in drink sales, according to the SEC. Concentrate is the syrupy base ingredient used to make soft drinks.

The scheme enabled Coke to meet Wall Street profit targets in eight of the 12 quarters, the SEC said. While the sales technically were legitimate, Coke failed to disclose their existence or financial impact, concealing its full sales and profit condition. "This is a disclosure issue," said Katherine Addleman, associate director of enforcement for SEC's district office in Atlanta. "We are not alleging Coke falsified the numbers."

Hey wasn't Warren Buffett a director of Coke back then?

Yes, yes he was.