A subpoena from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has been issued to Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc as part of an ongoing investigation into reported hiring of undocumented workers at the chain. The company is headquartered in Denver and had to fire close to 500 employees last year when the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement unit performed audits on the company. The company announced on Friday that it received the subpoena on May 17 and would comply with the investigation by the SEC.
The subpoena from the SEC asked for “information regarding our compliance with employee work authorization requirements, our related public statements and other disclosures, and related information.”
Robert Luskin, the attorney for Chipotle, said the following in a statement: “it is not at all unusual for the SEC to join an investigation under these circumstances to determine whether the company has been forthcoming in its public statements.”
Luskin, a Washington lawyer, said that he is “very confident that the SEC will find that the company fulfilled all of its obligations.”
Chipotle owns and operates its 1,000 locations across the country and is responsible for the hiring that occurs. The company is known for being able to control costs, specifically labor-related costs, each year.