The Slow Pace of Justice on Options Backdating
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A sweeping investigation into the backdating of stock options at more than 100 companies has so far led to relatively few enforcement actions or resolutions.
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Thousands of criminals are filing for reduced sentences. Backlogged courts are asking lawyers to slow down their appeals. Judges say they're confused about what to do.
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Individual investors are struggling to find a balanced approach at an unreliable time for the market.
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System latency can mean losses for stock traders and virtual death for online gamers. The developer of the EVE Online game hopes high-performance computing tools can save the day for its players.
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I noted yesterday that there seems to be some media fanfare surrounding Amazon's launch of a digital book tablet. It occurred to me that the markets surrounding media such as books, music and movies bear more than a passing resemblance to financial markets, and as such, perhaps they were amenable to a similar method of analysis. Being the owner of a sizable collection of paper books, this led me to consider the drawbacks one faces when Digital Rights Management restrictions are put in place.
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Even as the options-backdating scandal continues to grow, law firms that represent shareholders are struggling to find a foothold.
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The practice of manipulating stock options grants to make them more favorable has come back to haunt yet another round of high-tech executives. A former Monster Worldwide Inc. executive is expected to agree to a plea deal in New York Thursday, just a day after the founder of Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. pleaded guilty to a state felony related to backdating.
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It can be one hectic job running a technology company. Busy, busy, busy. How could you come to any other conclusion after reading the official story from Sycamore Networks Inc. about its $216 million stock option backdating problem? No one at the top had any idea it was going on. For years!
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Apple Inc  Chief Executive  Steve Jobs has been asked by U.S. securities regulators to give  a deposition in a stock options backdating lawsuit against the  company's former general counsel, Bloomberg reported on  Thursday, citing two people familiar with the matter.
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The FASB delays stock option expensing by six months. That's just more time for Big Tech to lobby.
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Blog: Tobak's take on Steve Jobs' role in the stock options backdating scandal at Apple
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Last week, US District Judge Vaughn Walker had the power to make Oracle&#39;s $7.7 billion hostile takeover bid disappear if he had ruled in favor of the Justice Department.
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(InfoWorld) - Brocade Communications Systems has agreed to pay a $7 million penalty to settle charges of stock-option backdating fraud. The payment will settle a civil action brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and comes with a permanent injunction against the storage networking company not to break various accounting laws. The SEC's action, announced Thursday, signals that the agency will take strong action against companies accused of backdating fraud. Scores of high-tech companies have either come under federal investigation or started their own probes related to the practice. Former Brocade executives granted tens of millions of stock options to employees and falsified the dates of those grants so that they could hide the cost of the options from shareholders, the SEC charged. Brocade did not admit to or deny the charges. The settlement concludes the SEC action, and Brocade said it does not expect the Department of Justice to take any action against it. "Falsifying compensation expenses is no less misleading to investors than falsifying revenue," said Linda Chatman Thomsen, director of the SEC's enforcement division, in a statement. Brocade's former chairman, president and CEO, Gregory Reyes, as well as former human resources chief Stephanie Jensen and former Chief Financial Officer Antonio Canova, were charged last July with fraud and other securities law violations. "The SEC will use all the weapons in our arsenal, including significant corporate penalties, to protect investors and combat fraudulent stock option backdating," SEC chairman Christopher Cox said in a statement. Backdating is legal and was a common practice in the fevered high-tech job market of the late 1990s as vendors competed for talent with attractive financial packages. But some of the biggest names in IT, including Apple, Broadcom, and McAfee, have been hit by concerns over how they carried it out.ADVERTISEMENTIBM Information On Demand 2006Industrial Industry Leaders, please join us at IBM's premier information management global event, IBM Information On Demand 2006, October 15-20, Anaheim, CA. More IBM business and technical solutions content in one place than ever before! Select from  over 800 sessions. Register today!
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Itâs amazing how long it can take investors to see that the wheels are coming off a prized investment vehicle. Denial, after all, is a powerful thing.
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A new study estimates that the stock options backdating scandal may cost shareholders hundreds of millions of dollars.
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How far is too far when it comes to the freedom of software? Plus: Palm slipping, Windows sliding.
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On the Mark: The blame game within IT can slow the resolution of problems reported by end users. But there are tools that can put a stop to all the finger-pointing, Mark Hall writes.