CNet, Krispy Kreme Current on Filings

Companies that delayed regulatory filings after backdated stock options grants are slowing coming into compliance.The two latest companies to become current in their filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission: CNet Networks and Krispy Kreme Doughnuts.Online media company CNet, which disc...

By Stephen Taub • Jan. 30, 2007

Top Ten Signs the Pendulum Has Swung

One after another, the stars are lining up. Both the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board beat retreats from bright-line strictures on internal controls. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson sets up a kitchen cabinet of deregulators in hopes of preventi...

By David Katz • Jan. 30, 2007

Inflection Point

There is no denying that hedge funds are the black holes of the investment galaxy. With some 9,000 funds pulling in $1.2 trillion in investments while offering almost no transparency, they have raised the ire of CFOs and the eyebrows of regulators.The Securities and Exchange Commission, which was...

By Lori Calabro • Jan. 30, 2007

Institutional Investors Eye “Say on Pay”

A group of institutional investors have filed a resolution with 44 U.S. corporations to win the right for shareholders to submit an advisory vote on executive compensation packages.The resolution, informally dubbed “Say on Pay,” is literally that, since it would not be binding on the companies.“W...

By Stephen Taub • Jan. 29, 2007

Former CA CFO Gets Light Sentence

The former chief financial officer of CA got a relatively light sentence for playing what a federal judge called a key role in the software company’s $2.2 billion accounting fraud. U.S. District Judge I. Leo Glasser sentenced Ira Zar to seven months in prison and seven months of home detention, c...

By Stephen Taub • Jan. 29, 2007

Ex-AquaCell CFO Sentenced for IPO Scheme

The former chief financial officer of AquaCell Technologies Inc. was sentenced to six months home detention and ordered to pay a $30,000 fine for lying to auditors during the company’s initial public offering, according to the Associated Press.In October, Gary Wolff pleaded guilty to one count of...

By Stephen Taub • Jan. 29, 2007

Green America: Waking Up and Catching Up

When Jim Webb, the new Democratic senator from Virginia, replied to George Bush’s state-of-the-union message, he could bear to endorse only one of the president’s proposals. This was the idea of cutting America’s petrol (gasoline) consumption by 20% in ten years, by increasing ethanol production ...

By Economist Staff • Jan. 29, 2007

Former Cendant CFO Seeks Probation

The former chief financial officer of Cendant is desperately trying to stay out of prison. Cosmo Corigliano, who is scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday for his role in the largest accounting fraud of the pre-Enron era, is asking the judge to sentence him to probation, home confinement, and communit...

By Stephen Taub • Jan. 26, 2007

Former NBC Treasurer Arrested

U.S. federal authorities have arrested the former treasurer of NBC Universal, Victor Jung, 34, on charges that he stole over $800,000 from the media conglomerate and used the money for personal gain.Jung, who was indicted on two counts of wire fraud Thursday, could be sentenced to a maximum of 20...

By Helen Shaw • Jan. 25, 2007

Former Enron IR Exec Enters Prison

Mark Koenig, the ex-chief of investor relations at Enron, began serving an 18-month prison term on Wednesday for helping top executives mislead Wall Street about the company’s financial condition, according to the Houston Chronicle.Koenig, who began serving the sentence in Three Rivers federal p...

By Stephen Taub • Jan. 25, 2007

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