SEC Requires More Exec Pay Disclosure
Note that it's the executive their going after, not the company. Also, this is one of the bigger infractions if proven to be true, not just backdating, but falsifying minutes to meetings. With Apple and other bigger companies, I doubt they're doing anything close to that.
biz.yahoo.com
Backdating of options can be legal so long as the practice is properly disclosed to shareholders and approved by the company's board, experts say.
The government's first criminal complaint in a stock options probe came last Thursday, when the U.S. Attorney's office in San Francisco charged the former chief executive of Brocade Communications Systems Inc. with fraud.
Gregory L. Reyes and another former executive of the maker of data storage devices, Stephanie Jensen, also face civil charges lodged by the SEC. Their attorneys have said they are innocent.
A central allegation in the government's case involves backdating of options awards. The authorities also allege that Reyes and Jensen regularly backdated minutes of meetings of the company's board so that it appeared that the compensation committee granted options on dates that Brocade's share price was relatively low. In fact, the authorities allege, no such meetings occurred on those dates.
|
