Digital River Reports Errors in Dating Stock-Option Grants: Tech Company to Take $9.4 Million Charge, Says Internal Probe Finds No Wrongdoing
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By Leslie Brooks Suzukamo, Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.  Feb. 7--Digital River Inc. said Tuesday it will take a stock-options charge of $9.4 million after an internal investigation found the e-commerce company used the wrong measurement dates for some grants going back to 1998.
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BOSTON -- An investigation of IBM Corp. by the Securities and Exchange Commission ended Tuesday without penalty, although the government found that the technology company misled analysts about employee stock-option expenses in 2005.
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The Stocks in the News on the DataBank page last Sunday contained incorrect labels for the stocksâ estimated price-to-earnings ratios. They were for 2008, not 2007.
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roundup Plus: Oracle extends deadline on PeopleSoft bid...MLB sells game clips for 99 cents...TiVo hires marketing chief...Jail time for California swappers?
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(InfoWorld) - Graphics chip maker Nvidia found some irregularities in past stock-based compensation practices during an internal probe, and took a total of $127 million in non-cash charges over associated expenses, the company said Wednesday. The figure fell within theÂ $150 million chargeÂ Nvidia said it might have to take. The company also amended financial results for its fiscal year 2006 and the first two quarters of 2007 as a result of the internal probe. The non-cash charge and amendments to previous financial statements ends its internal probe, but an inquiry by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) remains ongoing, Nvidia said. The restated earnings reports did not have a material impact on Nvidia's operating results, it said. The company plans to cooperate fully with the SEC. A number of technology companies have launched reviews over stock-based compensation to employees, finding instances in which stock options have been dated back to a time when the stock had hit a low. The practice is unfair to shareholders and was made almost impossible to legally execute by Sarbanes-Oxley, and for good reason. Stock options were designed as a way for employees to share in the success of the company and give them an added incentive. But by back-dating the options, employees -- often executives -- were essentially given shares that were already valuable. So far, stock options probes, carried out either by companies themselves or by the SEC, have affected over 160 companies.Â Investigations at memory chip developer RambusÂ andÂ security software vendor McAfeeÂ  have led to the resignation or firing of top executives.Â Apple ComputerÂ could be kicked off the Nasdaq by Dec. 29 if it fails to submit its SEC Form 10-Q for the quarter ended 1 July 2006, and any required restatements linked to its stock options probe by that time. Other companies have faced shareholder lawsuits over the issue.
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roundup Plus: Cisco CEO's salary shoots up from $1...SanDisk ups capacity on flash memory cards...Google tests Froogle in U.K.
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By Crayton Harrison, The Dallas Morning News  Sep. 14--Affiliated Computer Services Inc. didn't turn in its annual regulatory filing on time because it's still working on an internal investigation of its stock option practices, it said Thursday.
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A New Jersey court awards damages to Idaho couple in Vioxx case.Plus: SEC and OSC file complaints against former Nortel execs... Bush administration says it's fish farming season... and more.
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IBM will donate 500 patents for free use. Also:  Yahoo joins Google with hard drive search engine & hellip;.  Inconclusive report on cell phones: Are they a health hazard? & hellip;. and more.
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A Japanese company creates a memory card which could change the method of spending money. Also: Google to set up digital book samples  & hellip;. Nintendo equips handheld console & hellip;. and more.
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By The Orange County Register, Calif.  Dec. 19--Chipmaker Broadcom Corp. said it canceled more than $37 million  in stock options for three former employees after finding that they adjusted  the dates of the options to maximize their value.
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A security research company is offering $20,000 for information on undisclosed security flaws in Microsoft&#39;s Windows OS.Digital Armaments, which doesn&#39;t list a phone number or a headquarters address on its Web site, is offering the money as part of the &quot;Hacker&#39;s Challenge&quot; through midnight EST, Feb. 29. The company is also soliciting for flaws in what they term &quot;Windows Diffuse Applications.&quot;Submitters need to illustrate a working exploit and document it, according to the company&#39;s Web site, which is filled with misspelled words.There&#39;s nothing illegal about paying security researchers for flaws, but it does tend to annoy software companies whose products are affected.Wabisabilabi, based in Switzerland,&#160;took the idea of compensating researchers a step further&#160;last year by opening a site for them to sell vulnerabilities in auctions. In response to criticism, company officials countered that researchers could sell zero-day vulnerabilities on the black market.Microsoft, whose security vulnerabilities are generally high profile, advocates that researchers discretely alert it to software problems so users aren&#39;t put at risk. Companies generally refuse to pay for software vulnerabilities.Digital Armaments says on its Web site its research team was founded in 2003, and offices were opened in the U.S. later that year.In addition to paying money for vulnerabilities, Digital Armaments will also apparently pay in stock or credits that can be exchanged for stock under its Digital Armaments Contribution Program.Efforts to reach Digital Armaments on Wednesday morning by e-mail were unsuccessful.
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Apple Computer Inc. AAPL.O said   on Thursday an internal probe uncovered irregularities related   to the company's issuance of stock option grants between 1997   and 2001.
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Company will ship $4,900 camcorder and $3,700 digital recorder in February.
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An investigation of IBM Corp. by the Securities and Exchange Commission ended Tuesday without penalty, although the government found that the technology company misled analysts about employee stock-option expenses in 2005.
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Don't mention the stock Brocade and Mercury Interactive have coughed up $35m between them to settle charges they deliberately flouted SEC rules by falsifying dates of stock option grants.â¦
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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!