Tech companies are the primary focus of the SEC’s recently announced and currently ongoing inves­ti­gation into options dating irreg­u­lar­ities, which makes sense given their proclivity for awarding stock options as part of compen­sation packages with employees. An article in BusinessWeek documents what tech company execu­tives have recently termed a “witch hunt”: Many execu­tives are surprised […]

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No, Google isn’t managing invest­ments. They’re still devoted to “organizing the world’s infor­mation,” but that doesn’t matter to the SEC. A rule enacted in 1940 could cause increased regulatory headaches for the company. Companies whose securities make up more than 40 percent of their assets can fall under restric­tions that govern the mutual fund industry. […]

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Brocade Commu­ni­ca­tions Systems has become the first company to be formally inves­ti­gated by the SEC regarding the recent options backdating issue. According to the SEC’s complaint document, which names three former execu­tives of the company as plain­tiffs, from 2000 through 2004 the company inflated net income by under­stating their options-related expense through fraud­ulent schemes to […]

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The SEC has announced it’s going to be including companies’ external auditors in their inves­ti­gation into options timing abuses commonly known as backdating. Author­ities were said to be looking at what auditors knew about company manip­u­lation of options’ grant dates and exercise prices to boost their value to execu­tives who got them. About 30 companies […]

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The short answer is no. Here is a story from the Associated Press that claims the FASB is going to “tackle the thorny question of accounting for leased equipment and property.” Excuse me? Have we just been ignoring leases until this point? Does any journalist do research any more? Lease accounting isn’t new, although it is […]

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