Voting, Pay Top Shareholder Agendas

While voting rights tops the priority list for shareholder proposals this proxy season, executive pay is also likely to be the focus of a push by institutional investors, according to Institutional Shareholder Services. Indeed, ISS has tracked 104 pending proposals aimed at giving shareholders mo...

By Sarah Johnson • Jan. 25, 2007

SEC Settles with Former Alcore Execs

Two former executives of Alcore, once a subsidiary of aerospace equipment manufacturer Advanced Technical Products (ATP), have agreed to settle Securities and Exchange Commission charges of securities fraud and falsification of books and records.The commission alleged that former chief executive ...

By Helen Shaw • Jan. 23, 2007

Law Firm, Enron Settle for $18.5 Million

Texas law firm Andrews Kurth has agreed to pay $18.5 million to Enron to settle potential malpractice claims, according to published accounts.The law firm was never sued by Enron, noted the Houston Chronicle, but it was the subject of criticism by court-appointed bankruptcy examiner Neal Batson. ...

By Stephen Taub • Jan. 23, 2007

All the News That’s Fit to Sue

When you dial the New Orleans office of Kahn Gauthier Swick LLC, an automated greeting kicks on: “Thank you for calling Kahn Gauthier Swick, the law firm featured in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and other nationally prominent media.”The greeting seems appropriate give...

By John P. Mello Jr. • Jan. 23, 2007

Enron Prison Terms: First In, First Out

The first Enron executive to be sent to prison, former treasurer Ben Glisan Jr., was expected to complete his confinement on Friday, according to published accounts.In September 2003, Glisan pleaded guilty to a single count of criminal conspiracy and was immediately sentenced to five years in a f...

By Stephen Taub • Jan. 19, 2007

Face Time

Investors are increasingly demanding corporate information from the horse’s mouth — so much so that 40 percent of CFOs expect to spend more time on investor relations this year.“Personal contact is a key differentiator,” says Bill Bruno, senior vice president at Greenwich Associates, which recent...

By Lori Calabro • Jan. 18, 2007

Prosecutors Drop Equinix Options Probe

Equinix announced that the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California has withdrawn its grand jury subpoena requesting documents relating to the company’s stock option grants and practices.The telecommunications company, which provides data centers and Internet exchange services, was o...

By Stephen Taub • Jan. 17, 2007

SEC Sues Three Former ConAgra Execs

The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed civil charges against three former executives of a ConAgra Foods subsidiary in connection with an alleged scheme to inflate earnings in 1999 and 2000.Named were James Charles Blue, former president and chief operating officer of ConAgra Agri Produc...

By Stephen Taub • Jan. 17, 2007

Micron Settles Price-Fixing Suit

Micron Technology has announced a proposed settlement of a class-action lawsuit brought by certain purchasers of its dynamic random access memory (DRAM) computer chips.Micron expects the settlement to result in an $80 million reduction in earnings for the fiscal first quarter of 2007, which it re...

By Stephen Taub • Jan. 15, 2007

Comment on This

There was a lot of squawking this fall after European CFOs received comment letters from the Securities and Exchange Commission demanding additional information — sometimes lots of it — about how their International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS)–based filings translate into U.S. generally ...

By Rob Garver • Jan. 15, 2007

SEC Sanctions Lattice Semiconductor

The Securities and Exchange Commission has issued a cease-and-desist order against Lattice Semiconductor for an accounting scandal that cost a finance executive his job.In October 2005, the SEC settled its case with Ronald Lee Hoyt, the semiconductor manufacturer’s former controller and director ...

By Sarah Johnson • Jan. 12, 2007

Accounting Firm Asks to Help Prosecutors

Canadian accounting firm RSM Richter is seeking to cooperate with a U.S. investigation into Conrad Black’s former holding company, Ravelston.In November 2005, Black and three other executives were indicted by the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois of stealing $51.8 million from H...

By Stephen Taub • Jan. 11, 2007

Feds File Charges in HP Spying Probe

The first federal charges have been filed in the Hewlett-Packard spying scandal.The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California accused Bryan C. Wagner, a Littleton, Colorado-based private investigator, of fraudulently obtaining private phone records of Hewlett-Packard director...

By Stephen Taub • Jan. 11, 2007

Specter Re-ups Thompson Memo Battle

The debate over how a federal prosecutor considers a company’s cooperativeness in corporate crimes seemed like it had fizzled in December when the Justice Department revised its policy last month. But Republican U.S. Senator Arlen Specter isn’t letting the matter rest. Just a few days into the 11...

By Sarah Johnson • Jan. 10, 2007

Another Settlement in Ahold Scandal

The former controller of U.S. Foodservice (USF), a subsidiary of Dutch food conglomerate Royal Ahold, has agreed to pay $100,000 to settle fraud charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission.Suzanne Brown, who neither admitted nor denied the SEC’s allegations, also agreed to a five-year bar...

By Stephen Taub • Jan. 10, 2007

Former Qwest CFO Reaches Deal with SEC

Former Qwest Communications chief financial officer Robin Szeliga has reached a settlement in principle of a civil fraud lawsuit brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission, reported the Rocky Mountain News.Filed on Friday, the one-page court document disclosed few details, according to th...

By Stephen Taub • Jan. 8, 2007

NYC Pensions Seek Vote on Pay

The New York City Employees’ Retirement System (NYCERS) is calling on Home Depot, Blockbuster Inc., and Par Pharmaceutical Cos. to allow shareholders to approve the compensation of senior executives. “Institutional investors are fed up with the unbridled excesses of executive compensation in the ...

By Stephen Taub • Jan. 3, 2007

Class-Action Settlement Size Is Surging

Two studies published this week—>one from Stanford Law School, the other from NERA Economic Consulting—found that the number of shareholder class action suits were down dramatically in 2006. Even so, the size of settlements of existing cases soared past last year’s record levels, according to ...

By Stephen Taub • Jan. 3, 2007

MetLife Settles with Spitzer for $19 Million

MetLife has agreed to pay $19 million to settle allegations by outgoing Attorney General Eliot Spitzer that the insurance giant paid brokers who steered clients to purchase insurance from the company.The largest life insurer in the United States also agreed to adopt a new compensation structure t...

By Stephen Taub • Jan. 2, 2007

Securities Class-Action Suits Sharply Decline

Shareholders filed fewer lawsuits last year. The number of securities fraud class actions filed in 2006 plunged by 38 percent, to a total of 110 filings, from 178 the prior year, according to an annual review by the Stanford Law School Securities Class Action Clearinghouse, a joint project betwee...

By Stephen Taub • Jan. 2, 2007

Best of 2006: Law and Order

Stories of corporate crime — and punishment — ran the gamut this year, from the chilling 24-year sentence of Enron’s Jeffrey Skilling and Ken Lay’s sudden death after being convicted to Scott Sullivan’s empty pockets and the sale of Dennis Kozlowski’s multi-million-dollar mansion to pay his debts...

By CFO Editorial Staff • Dec. 29, 2006

Political Spending Disclosures Increase

Verizon Communications, Monsanto, and General Dynamics are the three latest large companies to agree to disclose some or all political spending made with corporate funds, according to a joint announcement last week from a number of shareholder activist groups. In addition, Monsanto and General Dy...

By Stephen Taub • Dec. 27, 2006

SEC Doles Out $83 Million from Gemstar Case

The Securities and Exchange Commission said shareholders who were harmed by fraudulent accounting and disclosure practices at Gemstar-TV Guide International will begin receiving about $83 million in cash and stock under the “Fair Funds” provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.The funds include $22.3 ...

By Stephen Taub • Dec. 26, 2006

Best of 2006: Risks and Benefits

Risk management, you’d think, isn’t the best topic to ponder during the holiday season. Terrorism, toxic waste, political and governance perils — they don’t sit well under the tree. But maybe finance chiefs can take solace in the fact that terrorism hasn’t hit these shores since 9/11 and that mos...

By CFO Editorial Staff • Dec. 26, 2006

Hard Landings?

Not everyone is flying high about lower oil prices.The cooling in jet-fuel costs since last summer sounds like good news, but it caught some airline-hedging programs off guard. Indeed, Alaska Air Group recorded a third-quarter loss of $17.4 million in October, partly due to losses tied to fuel-he...

By Lori Calabro • Dec. 26, 2006