BlackBerry Maker to Restate Results; Officer Gives Up a Title
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Research in Motion said that a top executive stepped down from one of his posts after the company said it would restate about $250 million in earnings.
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Research in Motion's chairman announced Monday he has resigned after a stock option probe found irregularities that will force the BlackBerry maker to restate its financial statements from 2004 to 2007.
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SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) - A federal appeals court affirmed part of a lower court ruling that found Research In Motion Ltd.&#39;s technology violated several patents, a ruling which ultimately may require the maker of BlackBerry devices to pay hefty damage
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TORONTO - A US appeals court ruled Tuesday that Research In Motion, maker of the BlackBerry e-mail device, infringed on another company&#39;s patent - but sent the case back to a lower court for some of the claims to be reconsidered.
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E-mail service of Research In Motion's BlackBerry smartphones experienced a "critical severity outage" on Monday, the company told clients in an e-mail.
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THE REGION Sapient Corp. said it will restate some financial results because of findings from an investigation related to the technology consultant's granting of stock options. The Cambridge company is also delaying third-quarter results because of the probe into the options, which were granted primarily between 1996 and 2001. Sapient, which hasn't determined the impact on the financial results, found ...
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(InfoWorld) - Research in MotionÂ (RIM) will search for a new chairman of its board after CEO Jim Balsillie stepped down from the job Monday, taking blame for his role in a stock-option scam that will cost the company $250 million in restated earnings. RIM, which makes the BlackBerry smartphone, will restate its annual earnings statements for fiscal years 2004, 2005, and 2006, and its statement for the first quarter of 2007. The changes could also affect its second and third quarter statements for 2007, which areÂ not yet filed, since RIM's internal audit is not complete. Balsillie will keep his other titles as co-CEO and a member of the board, but he and other top managers will be forced to pay back the profits they made by hand picking the most profitable dates for buying their stock options instead of receiving them the same date they were awarded, the company said. Employees can inflate their profits by claiming they received stock options on a day when the market was low, then selling them when the market rises again. Many technology companies have restated earnings caused by that practice in recent months, includingÂ Apple,Â Broadcom,Â McAfee, andÂ Monster Worldwide, as well asÂ Pixar, the computer animation film studio. Hoping to avoid lawsuits and regulatory censure, RIM began an internal investigation of stock option granting and accounting in August 2006, and predicted one month later that the damage would be between $25 million and $45 million. The company now says the true amount will be nearly 10 times that estimate. RIM also says it is cooperating with accounting investigations by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Ontario Securities Commission and a shareholder lawsuit filed in Canada's Ontario Superior Court of Justice. RIM's investigation covered more than 3,200 grant packages made between December 1996 and August 2006. So far, the review committee has found incorrect accounting for all options granted before Feb. 27, 2002, and in 63 percent of the grants made since then. The recent batch includes 321 grants for a total of 4.6 million shares. Balsillie resigned as chairman because the review showed that he had personally made or approved all grants made since RIM went public in 1997, except for those to himself and co-CEO Mike Lazaridis. RIM Chief Financial Officer Dennis Kavelman also helped to administer the awards. Balsillie told an internal review committee that he used the grants to attract skilled employees to the company in a competitive industry, and he made them so informally because of the RIM's rapid growth at that time, according to a company statement released Monday about the review. Balsillie and Kavelman also told the committee "they had a general understanding" that options could be granted at any chosen date within the fiscal reporting period. "Their understanding was incorrect," the committee said in its report. "The Special Committee determined that the company failed to maintain adequate internal and accounting controls with respect to the issuance of options in compliance with the company's stock option plan ... the grant process was characterized by informality and a lack of definitive documentation, and lacked safeguards to ensure compliance with applicable accounting, regulatory and disclosure rules." In other fallout from the investigation, Kavelman will step down as CFO, taking a new job as chief operating officer for administration and operations. Balsillie and Lazaridis will pay the company $5 million each to defray the cost of the investigation, and RIM accepted the resignations of Kendall Cork and Doug Wright, two members of the board's compensation committee. Finally, RIM promised to establish an oversight committee, charged with examining executive compensation, insider trading and hiring practices. Â
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NEW YORK, December 15  - A US appeal court has upheld a lower courtâs decision that Research in Motion (RIMM.NAS) had infringed on the patents held by NTP, while canceling an injunction preventing the sales of Blackberry email devices
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BlackBerry manufacturer Research in Motion said it has settled its lawsuit with Samsung over its use of the "BlackJack" trademark for handsets sold in the US by Cingular Wireless (now AT&T).  But the terms of that settlement are unclear, and AT&T may still have to make changes.
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BEA Systems said Monday that it would restate results to reflect expenses associated with misdated stock option grants.
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A US appeals court has upheld a ruling that Research in Motion, the maker of BlackBerry pagers, engaged in patent infringement, but it gave the company a chance to reduce a jury award that has grown to more than $100 million with interest.
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A U.S. appeals court ruled Tuesday that Research In Motion, maker of the BlackBerry e-mail device, infringed on another company's patent  --  but sent the case back to a lower court for some of the claims to be reconsidered.
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Rumors that Microsoft Corp. may purchase BlackBerry maker Research in Motion Ltd. are likely just that because ...
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Research In Motion and Samsung have resolved a lawsuit in which RIM claimed Samsung misled users about e-mail capabilities in its BlackJack smart phone.
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Research In Motion's    BlackBerry could lose its iconic status in the eyes of  corporate and retail subscribers alike if it doesn't manage to  stem service issues like the ones that led to two major outages  in less than a year, analysts say.
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BlackBerry maker Research In Motion  Ltd.  announced on Thursday that its audit  committee would voluntarily review historical stock-option  grants to employees, and has determined that a restatement of  its financials might be required.
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NEW YORK -- BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd.'s co-chief executive will give up the chairman's post after an internal probe identified a quarter-billion dollars in improper accounting for employee stock options at the mobile device company.