The former chief financial officer and two other former executives of Countrywide Financial have been charged with securities fraud by the US regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission. Former CFO Eric Sieracki along with former CEO Angelo Mozilo and former chief operating officer and president David Sambol, are alleged to have deliberately misled investors about the significant credit risks that were taken in efforts to build and maintain the company's market share. The regulator also alleges that the three falsely assured investors that Countrywide was primarily a prime quality mortgage lender that had avoided the excesses of its competitors. The enforcement action alleges that for the two years between 2005 and 2007, Countrywide took part in an unprecedented expansion of its underwriting guidelines and was writing 'riskier and riskier loans, which these senior executives were warned might ultimately curtail the company's ability to sell them.' Countrywide was required to disclose these trends to its investors in the Management Discussion and Analysis portion of its SEC filings, but failed to do so. The SEC further alleges that the three executives knew, and acknowledged internally, that Countrywide was writing increasingly risky loans, and that defaults and delinquencies would rise as a result, both on loans that Countrywide serviced and loans that it packaged and sold as mortgage-backed securities. Robert Khuzami, director of the SEC's enforcement division, said: 'Countrywide portrayed itself as underwriting mainly prime quality mortgages using high underwriting standards. But concealed from shareholders was the true Countrywide, an increasingly reckless lender assuming greater and greater risk.'