Quagmire in Qwest Trial?

The jury in Qwest Communications International Inc. trial has reached a verdict on 24 counts. That’s a little more than halfway there, according to the judge.In a federal court in Denver, four former Qwest executives — Grant Graham, former chief financial officer for Qwest’s global business unit;...

By Dave Cook • April 15, 2004

Press Ask Quattrone Judge to Ease Off

On Tuesday, the judge in the retrial of former investment banker Frank Quattrone ordered news organizations not to reveal the names of jurors during the trial. Yesterday, eight organizations asked him to reconsider.When The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post set aside that long-observed pr...

By Dave Cook • April 15, 2004

SEC Orders Market-Timing Disclosures

The Securities and Exchange Commission has ordered mutual funds to make public their policies on “market timing” and on the disclosure of the holdings in their portfolios, according to Reuters.The rapid in-and-out trading that characterizes market timing is not illegal in and of itself, but most ...

By Dave Cook • April 14, 2004

Guilty Plea Planned by Former Boeing Exec

Darleen Druyun, Boeing Co.’s former vice president and deputy general manager of missile-defense systems, will plead guilty to conspiracy next week, according to wire service reports.She has been under investigation for possible conflicts of interest regarding a multibillion-dollar Air Force deal...

By Dave Cook • April 14, 2004

Ex-Goldman Economist Gets 33 Months

John Youngdahl, formerly an economist for Goldman Sachs & Co., was sentenced Friday to 33 months in prison for relaying an insider tip that gave Goldman an eight-minute head start worth $3.8 million.On October 31, 2001, the U.S. government announced that it would no longer issue the benchmark...

By Dave Cook • April 13, 2004

Trials and Errors

It’s been an uphill struggle. Amid great fanfare in 2000, Covisint wowed the procurement world when it launched its ambitious global online B2B marketplace for the car industry, supported by the likes of DaimlerChrysler, Ford Motor Company and General Motors. At the time, the project’s backers cr...

By Poul Funder Larsen • April 13, 2004

Are Traders Jumping the Gun on Government Reports?

About two weeks ago, job seekers and President Bush received some welcome and unexpected news: Non-farm payrolls climbed 308,000 in March, the strongest month since April 2000. The March expansion was about triple the 103,000 increase that Wall Street pros were anticipating, CFO.com noted last we...

By Dave Cook • April 12, 2004

Putnam Settles Market-Timing Complaint

Late last week mutual fund company Putnam Investments agreed to pay $110 million to settle charges of improper trading brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission and Massachusetts.This settlement concludes the SEC and state cases regarding Putnam’s “market timing.” According to The New Yor...

By Dave Cook • April 12, 2004

Disney Sues Disney for Voting Records

Roy Disney, formerly a director of the Walt Disney Co., sued the company late last week to compel it to reveal how its employees voted in last month’s shareholder referendum.According to the Los Angeles Times, the former director asked a Delaware court to require that the company provide him with...

By Dave Cook • April 12, 2004

Pre-Trial Tribulations for Skilling

Former Enron Corp. chief executive officer Jeffrey Skilling was picked up early Friday morning by New York City police looking for an “emotionally disturbed person” on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, according to the New York Daily News. Officers checked Skilling into New York Presbyterian Hospital....

By Dave Cook • April 12, 2004

The Doubt of the Benefit

Corporate benefits packages may be shrinking, but voluntary benefits are skyrocketing. According to a recent survey, 6 of every 10 companies now offer at least one voluntary, or supplemental, benefit. Employees buy such products—most often some form of life, health, disability, or dental insuranc...

By John Goff • April 12, 2004

Tyco Lawyer’s Trial Delayed

The trial of Mark Belnick, former general counsel of Tyco International Ltd, has been postponed for two weeks, according to Reuters.Prosecutors had sought a delay until late May, reported the wire service, because of worries that the jury pool would be tainted. They were concerned that the “pheno...

By Stephen Taub • April 8, 2004

Lea Fastow’s Plea Deal Falls Apart

Lea Fastow is going to trial after all.A federal judge Wednesday rejected the plea bargain agreed upon between prosecutors and Fastow, a former Enron Corp. treasurer and wife of former chief financial officer Andrew Fastow.As a result, Lea Fastow changed her plea to “not guilty.” Now Lea Fastow i...

By Stephen Taub • April 8, 2004

The Case of the Hold-Out Granny

The trial of two former Tyco executives ended in high drama on April 2nd, as the judge, Michael Obus, declared a mistrial. Dennis Kozlowski, the firm’s ex-boss, and Mark Swartz, Tyco’s former finance chief, had stood accused of looting their employer of $600m, via fraudulent share sales and unaut...

By Economist Staff • April 8, 2004

KPMG Settles Travel-Related Suit

KPMG LLP and its former consulting arm, BearingPoint Inc., have agreed to pay $34 million to settle their part of a class-action lawsuit alleging that they overbilled clients for travel expenses, according to The Wall Street Journal.The plaintiffs had accused the two firms of charging them full p...

By Stephen Taub • April 6, 2004

Another Tyco Trial Looms Next Week

While commentators continue to revisit last week’s mistrial of two former Tyco executives, a former colleague is due in court this week, in anticipation of a trial scheduled to begin next Monday.Mark Belnick, former executive vice president and chief corporate counsel of Tyco International Ltd., ...

By Stephen Taub • April 6, 2004

Ebbers Prosecutors Get on the Same Page

Oklahoma authorities will defer to federal prosecutors in the matter of former WorldCom chief executive officer Bernard Ebbers — even at the expense of losing some counts to the statute of limitations — according to ChannelOklahoma.com.On Friday, not long after Judge Michael Obus declared a mistr...

By Dave Cook • April 5, 2004

Hearing Voices at Proxy Time

The Walt Disney Co.’s annual shareholder meeting this past March made headlines for the unprecedented rebellion of large investors that led Michael Eisner to step down as chairman. But smaller investors had already been debating this topic for weeks, thanks to a new Web site for shareholder activ...

By Kate O'Sullivan • April 5, 2004

Tyco Case a Mistrial, Judge Rules

The judge in the corruption trial of Tyco’s ex-chairman, Dennis Kozlowski, and its former CFO, Mark Swartz, declared a mistrial today after 12 days of deliberations, according to press reports..Citing outside pressure on one of the jurors that left him with no choice, New York State Supreme Court...

By David Katz • April 2, 2004

Prosecutors: Go Light on Lea Fastow

Prosecutors urged a judge not to sentence Lea Fastow for more time than she agreed to under a plea bargain deal, since her conduct did not play a role in Enron’s collapse, according to the Houston Chronicle.Fastow, the wife of former Enron CFO Andrew Fastow, is slated to be sentenced next week fo...

By Stephen Taub • April 2, 2004

Former McKesson CFO Indicted for Fraud

An ex-finance chief of McKesson Corp. was indicted on Tuesday for his role in the drug wholesaler’s accounting fraud.The U.S. Attorney’s Office indicted Richard Hawkins on charges of conspiracy and securities fraud. Civil securities fraud charges were also filed against Hawkins by the Securities ...

By Stephen Taub • April 1, 2004

Monsters Inc.

At Forrester Research Inc., analysts get to try out the latest cool technology for themselves: PDAs, Wi-Fi laptops, nifty storage devices. Their jobs also call for reviewing much more mundane technology, like network “sniffing” software and intrusion-detection devices.Testing such tools has led t...

By Russ Banham • April 1, 2004

SEC Settles with Five Specialist Firms

Five New York Stock Exchange specialist firms have agreed to pay $242 million as part of a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission over alleged trading abuses.The five firms, which will shell out nearly $88 million in civil penalties and $154 million in disgorgement, also agreed to...

By Stephen Taub • March 31, 2004

SEC Investigating Tyson Foods

The Securities and Exchange Commission has launched a formal probe of payments made to certain officers and directors at Tyson Foods Inc., including former senior chairman Don Tyson and current chairman and chief executive officer John Tyson.According to the beef and poultry processor, the invest...

By Stephen Taub • March 30, 2004

Tyco Jury Regains Its Focus

Go back and deliberate.Those were the instructions of the judge in the Tyco fraud case, who turned down defense requests on Monday that he declare a mistrial due to unusual press coverage of one of the jurors.“We can’t let what’s in the newspapers dictate what happens,” said New York State Suprem...

By Stephen Taub • March 30, 2004