Editor’s Note: Today’s Sunday Arts installment excerpts a post from my very earliest days of blogging. The May 25, 2006 post (here) appeared in a separate and now defunct blog called And Furthermore that I then maintained in parallel with what was then and remains now my principal blog, The D&O Diary.

One of the more interesting stories in the financial pages these days is the news surrounding the options backdating probes. As the options backdating story has continued to unfold, some have questioned whether or not there is actually anything wrong with options backdating. For example, the wsj.com law blog has a May 23, 2006 video post containing a debate between a business school prof and a CNBC reporter on the topic. Options backdating is obviously not harmless — the revelation of options backdating has already proven damaging to at least some of the companies caught up in the probe as they have had to restate their past financials to reflect their true compensation costs. But even beyond the restatement threat, there is a particular reason why the options backdating story has gained momentum in a way that stories about executives’ use of corporate aircraft or gold-plated pensions have not.
Continue Reading Sunday Arts: Cheating at Cards

namibiaA very long ten years ago – before the financial crisis, before the Euro crisis, before the Brexit vote — there was the options backdating scandal. The wave of litigation the scandal stirred up took its time to work its way through the system, but eventually the litigation was resolved and the scandal moved into the past. Even though the the scandal moved into the realm of history several years ago, there was one small but important unresolved item. The criminal case against Jacob “Kobi” Alexander, the former CEO of Comverse Technology, Inc., remained open, because shortly before he was about to be indicted, Alexander fled to Namibia. This strange but interesting chapter of the options backdating saga came closer to resolution last week when Alexander – back in the U.S. from his Namibian refuge — appeared in federal court in Brooklyn to enter a guilty plea to a single charge of securities fraud.
Continue Reading A Blast from the Past: Fugitive Comverse Technology CEO Kobi Alexander Returns to Enter Guilty Plea

The options backdating scandal may now be ancient history, but questions surrounding insurance coverage for the scandal’s consequences apparently continue to live on. In a September 9, 2011 opinion applying Maryland law, Southern District of New York Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald ruled in a coverage action brought by SafeNet’s excess D&O insurer that, among many

Although some noteworthy settlements from the subprime-related securities class action litigation wave have started to accumulate (refer for example here), there are still some impressive settlements coming in from the prior scandal.

In the third largest options backdating-related securities class action lawsuit settlement, Maxim Integrated Products has agreed to settle the claims against

On January 27, 2010, NERA Economic Consulting released its updated annual review of Canadian securities class litigation entitled "Trends in Canadian Securities Class Actions: 2009 Update" (here). The report presents an interesting study of the evolution of class action litigation in a jurisdiction outside the U.S.

According to the report, there were

Over the years, legislative reforms of the U.S. securities laws have cycled back and forth, between initiatives, on the one hand, to discourage abusive litigation and, on the other hand, to restrain corporate misconduct. In the current Wall Street bailout, post-Madoff environment, sentiment may be running high for legislative reforms that could expand liabilities under

Broadcom Corporation, which previously settled its options backdating related derivative suit for $118 million, announced on December 29, 2009 (here) that it had settled the separate options backdating related securities class action lawsuit pending against the company and certain of its directors and officers in exchange for its agreement to pay $160.5

In a December 28, 2009 press release (here), the plaintiffs’ lawyers announced the settlement of the Comverse Technology options backdating-related derivative lawsuit. This derivative lawsuit settlement is separate from, but related to, the previously announced $225 million settlement of the Comverse Technology options backdating-related securities class action lawsuit (about which refer here).The

According to a December 17, 2009 press release from the lead plaintiff’s attorneys, the parties to the Comverse Technology options backdating related securities lawsuit have agreed to settle the case for $225 million dollars. A particularly noteworthy feature is that the settlement amount includes a $60 million individual contribution from the company’s former CEO, Kobi