Digital Daily » regulator

Backdating Settlement in Motion, Redux

John Paczkowski — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 23:52:23 +0000

Two weeks after Canadian regulators dropped the hammer on Blackberry maker Research In Motion for its stock option backdating scheme, the Securities and Exchange Commission has dropped it again. Today, the agency charged RIM CFO Dennis Kavelman, former VP of Finance Angelo Loberto and co-CEOs James Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis with illegally granting stock options to company executives and employees over an eight-year period from 1998 through 2006. “RIM and its highest level executives engaged in widespread backdating of options which provided them and other employees with millions of dollars in undisclosed compensation,” said Linda Chatman Thomsen, director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, in a statement. Worse, the four executives subsequently made “false and misleading disclosures” about how RIM (RIMM) priced and accounted for options. Without admitting (or denying) guilt, the four execs agreed to settle the matter. Each will disgorge the in-the-money value of backdated options they exercised and pay a fine ranging between $150,000 and $500,000–far less steep than the $75 million in penalties ordered by the Ontario Securities Commission.

HP Declares EDS Employee Surplus

John Paczkowski — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 20:27:45 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

Jerry Brown Tops Google/Yahoo Antitrust Pig Pile

John Paczkowski — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 16:08:10 +0000

Now that the Justice Department has asked a hotshot litigator to review the proposed search-advertising partnership between Google and Yahoo, everyone seems to be getting into the act. California Attorney General Jerry Brown is reportedly looking askance at the deal, apparently with an eye toward an investigation. While Brown’s office hasn’t yet taken any formal action, it is said to be sharing documents with the Justice Department through “a confidential online document repository.”

Google (GOOG), for its part, continues to claim its pact with Yahoo (YHOO) is beneficial to competition, and seems prepared to go through with it. “While there has been a lot of speculation about this agreement’s potential impact on advertisers or ad prices, we think it would be premature for regulators to halt the agreement before we implement it and everyone can judge the actual impact,” the company said after the Association of National Advertisers sent a letter to the Justice Department opposing it. Of course, the flip side of that is that it might be premature for Google to move ahead with the agreement before regulators say they’re comfortable with it. Said Stifel Nicolaus analyst Blair Levin, “it would be risky … to proceed if they are getting signals that the agency has serious concerns.”