SEC Decision Draws Cheers

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s decision to drop reconciliation requirements for international companies filing financial statements in the United States using International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) drew immediate praise from industry groups on Thursday.The U.S. Chamber of Co...

By Alan Rappeport • Nov. 15, 2007

Forgery, Theft Net 70 Months in Jail

A former finance executive at a small South Carolina company was sentenced to 70 months in prison for stealing $7 million from her former employer. Angela Timmons, who was an account manager and finance director from 1997 through 2006 at Peace Textile, also must transfer to the company personal ...

By Stephen Taub • Nov. 14, 2007

The Dark Side of Global Accounting Standards

If the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday votes as expected and allows non-U.S. issuers here to report their financials in line with International Financial Reporting Standards without reconciling them with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, the United States will have crossed ...

By David Katz • Nov. 14, 2007

Chevron Next to Pay Up in Oil for Food Scheme

Chevron Corp. is the latest company to settle charges that it made illegal payoffs to the former government of Iraq in connection with the United Nations’ Oil for Food Program. To settle civil and criminal charges filed against it by a number of federal agencies, Chevron will pay $30 million, c...

By Stephen Taub • Nov. 14, 2007

SEC Enforcement Actions Shoot Up

Increases in backdating and insider-trading cases have kept Securities and Exchange Commission enforcers busier this year. The SEC has filed 14 percent more enforcement cases in its most recent fiscal year, according to Bloomberg. The commission brought 656 cases accusing companies of violating s...

By Sarah Johnson • Nov. 12, 2007

New Trial Date Set for Ex-Symbol CFO

A federal judge has set May 5 as the date for retrial of former Symbol Technologies CFO Kenneth Jaeggi for his alleged role in the company’s massive accounting scandal earlier in the decade.Jaeggi, senior vice president of finance Michael DeGennaro, and senior vice president and general manager ...

By Stephen Taub • Nov. 12, 2007

A Wild Whistle-blower Showdown Is in the Offing

The issue of how poorly Sarbanes-Oxley protects finance executives who blow the whistle on alleged corporate abuse seems headed for a wild showdown in federal court.And when the five-year-old case finally is heard in the Fourth District Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., it promises to put genera...

By Roy Harris • Nov. 8, 2007

SEC, Former Exec Settle Finite Insurance Charges

The Securities and Exchange Commission and a former senior executive of a RenaissanceRe Holdings subsidiary have settled accounting fraud charges against the executive that stemmed from the finite insurance scandal.Without admitting or denying the commission’s charges, Michael Cash, the former se...

By Stephen Taub • Nov. 8, 2007

Fear and Loathing of the SEC

The Securities and Exchange Commission has its sights on possible footholds outside the United States. “London or Brussels have been mentioned as potential overseas offices,” John Nester, an SEC spokesman, told CFO.com. “But we would want to look at Asia as well.”Such plans are still very prelimi...

By Alan Rappeport • Nov. 8, 2007

Enforcement on Backdating Cools Off

Electronic Arts, the video-game creator, announced Tuesday that the Securities and Exchange Commission dropped its probe into the company’s stock-option backdating practices and would not take any action. The halted investigation is the third in the last week, marking a decline in enforcement act...

By Alan Rappeport • Nov. 7, 2007

Realtor’s Ex-CFO Charged with $5.4M Embezzlement

Donald Brent Romano, a former CFO of Friedkin Realty Management Group, a privately held real estate company, was slated to face embezzlement-related charges in a federal court on Wednesday. Romano is accused of embezzling $5.4 million from the San Francisco-based firm. An affidavit filed by FBI a...

By Sarah Johnson • Nov. 7, 2007

The SEC’s New Take on Loan Commitments

The Securities and Exchange Commission staff has modified its position on how companies should account for written loan agreements when using the fair-value accounting method. The newly issued opinion follows the recent issuance of new fair-value guidelines that many companies could start using ...

By Sarah Johnson • Nov. 6, 2007

Tales of the Unexpected

As CFO of RWE npower, Volker Beckers is used to discussing risks at the UK energy company during presentations with analysts and investors. After all, in a sector being shaken up by major regulatory upheavals, price volatility and a host of other uncertainties, the company, which is part of Germa...

By Eila Rana • Nov. 5, 2007

Mesa Air Jettisons CFO After Court Ruling

Mesa Air Group said on Monday that it has fired chief financial officer George “Peter” Murnane III. The move came just days after the U.S. Bankruptcy Court found that Mesa had violated a confidentiality agreement with Hawaiian Airlines.Mesa noted that the court found Murnane had “intentionally a...

By Stephen Taub • Nov. 5, 2007

Mesa Air Jettisons CFO After Court Ruling

Mesa Air Group said on Monday that it has fired chief financial officer George “Peter” Murnane III. The move came just days after the U.S. Bankruptcy Court found that Mesa had violated a confidentiality agreement with Hawaiian Airlines.Mesa noted that the court found Murnane had “intentionally a...

By Stephen Taub • Nov. 5, 2007

SEC Formalizes Cirrus Logic Scrutiny

Cirrus Logic is now the subject of a full-blown Securities and Exchange Commission investigation, one year after the regulator began an informal inquiry into the company’s historical stock option practices. Under a formal probe, the SEC has subpoena power.Back in March, Cirrus Logic said it expe...

By Stephen Taub • Nov. 5, 2007

Backdating Claim Against Openwave to Proceed

A federal judge permitted a shareholder lawsuit to go forward against Openwave Systems and nine former executives in an alleged stock-option backdating scheme. The defendants include two former chief financial officers and two former CEOs. In an opinion dated Oct. 31, U.S. District Judge Denise C...

By Stephen Taub • Nov. 5, 2007

My Privilege

Anyone who watches popular American legal TV shows such as “Law and Order” knows that what is said between clients and their lawyers is protected by “attorney-client privilege,” right? Well, maybe not, according to a ruling in September by Europe’s second-highest court.The case stems from a 2003 ...

By Laura Cameron • Nov. 5, 2007

Bitter Medicine

In an effort to curtail drug counterfeiting, some 21 states have passed “pedigree” legislation — laws that require the documentation of how drugs pass through the supply chain to the retailer. Much to the dismay of manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers alike, California lawmakers will up the ...

By Lori Calabro • Nov. 1, 2007

How Low Can They Go?

Wonder whether your suppliers are truly giving you a good deal? Two professors who study online reverse auctions (in which buyers solicit bids and award their business to the low bidder) have devised a mathematical model that can assess whether a bid truly represents a seller’s best price.Describ...

By Alix Stuart • Nov. 1, 2007

Innovators’ Dilemma

New patent laws that go into effect this month are ostensibly designed to cut down on frivolous filings and a crushing applications backlog, but critics say they may have a chilling effect on innovation.Previously, any person or company filing a patent application was allowed to file an unlimited...

By Avital Louria Hahn • Nov. 1, 2007

SEC Clears PMC-Sierra of Backdating

PMC-Sierra, one of reportedly more than 200 companies implicated in the backdating scandal, is no longer the subject of a federal probe. Last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission told the semiconductor provider that the informal investigation into the company’s stock option practices is o...

By Sarah Johnson • Oct. 31, 2007

Shareholders Unite to Hold Merrill Accountable

At least two class-action lawsuits have been filed on behalf of shareholders against Merrill Lynch and company officers and directors following the company’s recent $8 billion write-off and the subsequent “retirement” of its CEO. The lawsuits, brought by Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbi...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 31, 2007

Dell Filings Are Back on Line

Dell is finally current with its regulatory filings. The struggling computer maker on Tuesday filed its past due reports for fiscal 2007, which include an amended report for the first quarter of fiscal 2007, as well as reports for the second and third quarters of fiscal 2007, and the first and se...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 31, 2007

U.S. Botches Terror-Support List

The Securities and Exchange Commission’sattempt to publicize a list of companies with businessties to terrorist-sponsoring states caused quite a stirthis summer. The list of more than 90 companiesincluded a number of household names, fromAstraZeneca to Cadbury Schweppes to Reuters toXerox. Posted...

By Kate Plourd • Oct. 30, 2007