When the Cornerstone Research and the Stanford Law School Securities Class Action Clearinghouse released their "2006 Mid-Year Assessment" earlier this week, the Report showed a 45% decline in the number of securities lawsuits filed in the first half of 2006 compared to the prior year period. According to the Report, the 61 securities class action
Reports About Earnings Guidance, Securities Litigation Frequency, and The D & O Insurance Marketplace
Eliminate Quarterly Guidance? On July 24, 2006, the CFA Centre for Financial Market Integrity and the Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics issued a Report entitled "Breaking the Short-Term Cycle: Discussion and Recommendations on How Corporate Leaders, Asset Managers, Investers and Analysts Can Refocus on Long-Term Value," calling on corporate leaders, asset managers and others
News About (and From) Plaintiffs’ Lawyers
According to Gerald Silk of the Bernstein, Litowitz, Berger & Grossman firm, options backdating is a "make-or-break issue." Silk is not talking about the interests of aggrieved shareholders –he means that options backdating is a really big deal for the plaintiffs’ bar. His comments appear in a July 24, 2006 article entitled "Plaintiffs’ Lawyers Jockey
White Collar Crime Trends and the Options Backdating Investigations
With all of the media attention focused on the first options backdating criminal complaint, filed July 20, 2006 against two former officials of Brocade Communications Systems, and with published reports suggesting (for example in the July 21, 2006 front page article of the Wall Street Journal , subscription required) that prosecutors are investigating “over
Counting the Options Backdating Lawsuits
The information in this post was last updated on September 10, 2008
The purpose of this blog post is to track options backdating related litigation. All of the companies that have been sued — and of which the The D & O Diary is aware — have been listed below. The D & O
New Options Backdating Study Implicates Thousands of Companies
Erik Lie, the University of Iowa Business School professor whose research is widely credited with unlocking the emerging options backdating scandal, has published a new research paper concluding that practice of options backdating was far more widespread than current media reports suggest. According to Lie’s July 14, 2006 paper, written with Associate
Corporate Governance and D & O Insurance
One of the least understood and least studied features of the world of corporate and securities law is the impact that directors’ and officers’ liability insurance has on companies’ conduct. A new article by two University of Connecticut Law School professors, Tom Baker and Sean Griffith, represents an ambitious attempt to understand the impact
SOX Whistleblower and FCPA Updates and Other Notes from Around the Web
Sarbanes-Oxley Act Whistleblower Updates: In a May 31, 2006 ruling, an Administrative Review Board (ARB) of the U.S. Department of Labor has answered two important questions arising Section 806 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the so-called Whistleblower provisions. (Prior D & O Diary posts regarding the Sarbanes-Oxley Whistleblower provisions can be found here and here
Options Backdating Securities Litigation Update (and other Notes and Comments)
Options Backdating Securities Litigation: On June 29, 2006, a putative securities fraud class action was initiated against KLA-Tencor. This brings the number the number of companies sued in securities fraud class action lawsuits based on options timing allegations to eight. Background on the other seven companies previously named can be found on prior D
Thompson Memo Held Unconstitutional
On June 27, 2006, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan held, in the KPMG tax shelter prosecution, that portions of the Thompson memo violate the constitutional rights of 16 former KMPG partners who are accused of participating in a fraudulent tax scheme. Judge Kaplan found that KPMG, seeking to show full compliance with the Thompson memo