Another TIAA-CREF trustee is leaving his post for a past relationship with the company's past auditor, Ernst & Young.

During a search for a new auditor last month, Professor Martin J. Gruber, trustee of the College Retirement Equities Fund and the TIAA-CREF Funds, notified the boards and committees undertaking the search that he entered into a contract with Ernst & Young in 1999.

Gruber was to participate in an Ernst & Young program to organize conferences based on participants' academic specialties. The program was ended before it was launched and Gruber's contract ended in 2000.

According to a news release, the boards and committees determined that there was no wrongdoing on Gruber's part, but he has decided to step down, regardless.

The move was likely preemptive. TIAA-CREF is already in hot water for two other trustees and their relationship with Ernst & Young. The trustees, William Waltrip and Stephen Ross, resigned in November 2004 after Ernst & Young discovered information about a joint venture between the company and the trustees. In December, TIAA-CREF disclosed that the SEC had begun an informal investigation over the Ernst & Young relationship.

TIAA-CREF also announced on Thursday that it had selected PricewaterhouseCoopers as its new independent auditor.

Gruber is a banking and finance professor at New York University and the author of many papers on the mutual fund and 401(k) industry. 

Stay ahead of the news ... Sign up for our email alerts now
CLICK HERE