SEC Charges Six with Inflating Revenue

The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a complaint against five former officers — included two finance executives — and one former employee of Riverstone Networks, Inc., a telecom equipment company, accusing them of fraudulently inflating revenues.The suit was filed in U.S. District Court f...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 16, 2006

SEC Settles Bribery Charges with Statoil

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced it has settled charges that Norway-based Statoil ASA, a multinational oil company listed on the New York Stock Exchange, violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), which prohibits bribery of foreign government officials. The Commission’s or...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 16, 2006

DoL Sues Agway Directors on 401(k)

The U.S. Department of Labor is suing the fiduciaries of a liquidated company, accusing 47 directors of “imprudently” investing $50 million of its 401(k) plan in the company’s securities. That investment allegedly overvalued the stock and gave employees misleading information.In a suit filed with...

By Sarah Johnson • Oct. 16, 2006

SEC Charges Three Enron Executives

The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged a former Enron accountant/executive and two former executives with fraud and aiding and abetting Enron’s violations of the reporting, record-keeping, and internal controls provisions of securities laws. The three ex-officials, former accountant a...

By Sarah Johnson • Oct. 16, 2006

Prosecutors May Appeal Fastow’s Term

Prosecutors may appeal the six-year prison sentence recently handed to former Enron CFO Andrew Fastow, according to The Houston Chronicle.The brevity of the term reportedly stunned former Enron employees. Fastow had previously agreed to a 10-year sentence under a plea deal.The shorter sentence ap...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 13, 2006

Execs Still Waiting for 404 Help

Four years after the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, corporate managers are still seeking guidance on compliance with Section 404, the provision of the law that requires management and auditor assessments of the effectiveness of internal controls over financial reporting.To be sure, the Securi...

By Helen Shaw • Oct. 13, 2006

Homestore Founder Wolff Gets 15 Years

Stuart Wolff, the founder and former chief executive of Homestore Inc., was sentenced Thursday to 15 years in prison and ordered to pay $8.64 million in restitution and a $5 million fine for his role in a scheme to defraud investors.As CFO.com reported this summer, Homestore’s fraud became the su...

By Stephen Taub and Rob Garver • Oct. 13, 2006

U.S. Companies Spending a Fortune in Court

A survey of corporate counsel finds that U.S. companies face a staggering average of 305 lawsuits at any given time. It also notes that government inquiries — particularly from the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Occupational Safety & Health Administration — and internal investigat...

By Tim Reason • Oct. 12, 2006

Rating Underfunded Plans

To the ever-expanding list of pension headaches, add this one: credit ratings.The Pension Protection Act of 2006, an almost 1,000-page bill that President Bush signed into law in August, sets a funding target of 100 percent for defined-benefit pension plans. It also requires companies to make inc...

By Rob Garver • Oct. 11, 2006

Ex-CFO Gets 25 Years for Embezzlement

A former finance executive of an energy company was sentenced to nearly 25 years in prison for embezzling more than $77 million from his employer, according to the Associated Press. Jonathan Nelson, a 36-year-old ex-CFO of Patterson-UTI Energy Inc., was also fined $200,000 and ordered to pay abou...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 10, 2006

Ex-Enron Exec Gets Probation

On Friday onetime Enron managing director of investor relations Paula Rieker was sentenced to two years’ probation for insider trading, according to the Associated Press.Prosecutors had requested a reduced sentence for Rieker based on her cooperation with authorities during the investigation into...

By Sarah Johnson • Oct. 6, 2006

Judge Won’t Enforce Whistle-blower Ruling

The first worker to win protection as a whistle-blower under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act suffered another setback in his drawn-out case when a U.S. district judge decided not to enforce a Department of Labor ruling ordering a Virginia bank to reinstate him, according to the Associated Press.Whistle-bl...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 6, 2006

Hedge Fund Chair Says SEC Dropping Probe

The founder and chairman of Pequot Capital, the giant hedge fund, said that the Securities and Exchange Commission informed him that it will not recommend enforcement action against the company or any of its employees. Although the company is still being probed by the SEC for matters related to i...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 5, 2006

The Good and Bad About XBRL’s Future

The Securities and Exchange Commission will consider whether to require companies to use the XBRL programming language for their financial statements “sooner rather than later,” said SEC Chairman Christopher Cox during Tuesday’s second interactive data roundtable. XBRL is an Internet-language met...

By Sarah Johnson • Oct. 4, 2006

Take My Desk — Please

Remember 1999, when big companies rushed to imitate the dot-coms by crafting hip workplaces? Suddenly, relaxed dress codes, refrigerators full of Diet Coke and Snickers bars, and dogs in the halls made the corporate life seem a little less corporate.Most of that funky aesthetic disappeared faster...

By Don Durfee • Oct. 1, 2006

XBRL Will Keep Investors Wanting More

Be prepared for hard questions.If Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Christopher Cox gets his wish and companies universally adopt XBRL to file their financial statements, investors and analysts will be asking CFOs tougher questions.By using the XBRL programming language, which eliminate...

By Sarah Johnson • Sept. 29, 2006

SEC Charges Ex-RenaissanceRe Controller

The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed civil fraud charges against three former top executives RenaissanceRe Holdings Ltd. — including the former controller — for misusing finite insurance. The complaint alleges that James N. Stanard and Martin J. Merritt, the former CEO and former con...

By Tim Reason • Sept. 27, 2006

HealthSouth Settles for $445 Million

HealthSouth Corp. has agreed to pay $445 million to settle several lawsuits against the health-care provider and some of its former directors and officers stemming from its accounting scandal. Under the deal, HealthSouth will shell out $215 million in common stock and warrants, and its insurance ...

By Stephen Taub • Sept. 27, 2006

SEC Hires a Company It’s Investigating

A subcontractor hired on Monday by the Securities and Exchange Commission to work on its new, interactive regulatory filing system doesn’t have enough confidence in its own financial statements to file on time. What’s more, the firm is under formal investigation by the SEC because of the company’...

By Marie Leone • Sept. 27, 2006

Fastow Sentenced to Six Years in Prison

Former Enron Corp. CFO Andrew Fastow was sentenced Tuesday to six years in prison. The sentence is four years less than the 10 years he agreed to under a prior plea deal for his role in the fraud that plunged the one-time energy giant into bankruptcy.The judge, in the case was not bound by Fastow...

By Stephen Taub • Sept. 26, 2006

Fastow Sentencing Set for Tuesday

The sentencing of former Enron Corp. chief financial officer Andrew Fastow may finally take place on Tuesday.But, contrary to many published reports, it’s still not definite that U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt will actually make his decision that day.That’s because he said he will listen to any...

By Stephen Taub • Sept. 25, 2006

Olis Sentence Cut to Six Years

The former Dynegy Inc. tax executive Jamie Olis’ sentence was re-sentenced Friday to six years in prison, down from the initial 24 years, according to Bloomberg.The original sentence was tossed out by a Federal appeals court, which ruled that Judge Sim Lake — who also presided over the trial of K...

By Stephen Taub • Sept. 25, 2006

Zale Cleared by SEC; Names New CFO

Zale Corp. Sunday said the Securities and Exchange Commission has ended a probe of the jewelry retailer and that no enforcement action was recommended.The company announced back in April that the regulator was investigating the timing of certain vendor payments, as well as other matters including...

By Stephen Taub • Sept. 25, 2006

Skilling Arrested for Intoxication

Jeffery Skilling came awfully close to going to prison before his scheduled sentencing on October 23.The former Enron chief executive officer was arrested by Houston police early in the morning of September 9 for public intoxication, according to the Houston Chronicle.However, the paper said he w...

By Stephen Taub • Sept. 21, 2006

Another Increase in Compliance Costs

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act is often blamed for a dearth of accountants, and their new found leverage to demand more money from their employers. The Act has also given rise a boost to another corporate denizen: compliance and ethics officers, who increasingly are being invited into the executive suite...

By Sarah Johnson • Sept. 21, 2006