SiliconBeat

Immersion, the San Jose provider of hardware and software “touch” technologies used in digital devices said in a filing today that its audit committee has begun an internal investigation into “certain previous revenue transactions in its Medical line of business. The company said the investigation is being conducted “with the assistance of outside counsel”.

The company did not rule out the possibility of Read the rest of this entry »

Cisco Systems said it would be booking a one-time tax charge of about $130 million to $150 million in its current fiscal 2009 fourth quarter after a ruling Wednesday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in a case between Xilinx and the Internal Revenue Service related to stock-based compensation expense.

Although not named in the case decided, th Read the rest of this entry »

Selectica, the San Jose developer of contract-management software, said Wednesday that it is delaying the release of its fiscal 2009 fourth quarter and full-year financial results as the company reviews the accounting for the sale of its Indian subsidiary.

That sale, described in a press release on April 6, involved Read the rest of this entry »

Vermillion, the biotech company formerly known as Ciphergen Biosystems, filed for bankruptcy protection Monday after losing four of the directors on its board the week before, when it also received the the asked-for resignations of its CEO, interim chief financial officer, and vice president in charge of business development.

None of the director resignations were “the result of any disagreement” with the company, and the senior executives quit “for the sole reason of conserving Company resources”, according to the filing announcing the news.

We first wrote about Vermillion in September 2007 when we noted that Phronesis Partners, an Ohio-based hedge fund that takes its name from a Greek term used by the philosopher Aristotle to denote “practical wisdom,” or “prudence,” disclosed that it was Vermillion’s largest shareholder then the largest owner of of a company that has yet to show a profit and has accumulated losses to the tune of $218 million since its founding in 1993.

West Marine, the boating supply retailer, received a “Wells Notice” from the Securities and Exchange Commission Monday saying that the federal regulatory agency’s staff intends to recommend that a civil action be brought against the Watsonville company related to an SEC investigation into its accounting for inventory in its 2003 fiscal year.

Those actions sometimes include recommendations that current or former employees Read the rest of this entry »

The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged Blue Coat Systems and its former chief financial officer Robert Verheecke, alleging that they backdated stock option grants to executives and employees and reported false financial information to shareholders.

The complaint against the Sunnyvale network security company and its ex-CFO alleges that Read the rest of this entry »

Give the accounting firm Deloitte an A for promptness. We received an e-mail from the company with “President-elect Obama and Tax Policy” in the subject field that included a link to its paper titled “Tax Policy Decisions Ahead: President-elect Obama’s Call for Change”.

Noting that most serious observers of Washington “had long since concluded that the tax and spending commitments of the United States are unsustainable beyond the end of the next decade” when the presidential campaign began in earnest in the Spring of 2007, Deloitte reminds us that a few things have happened since, particularly in the last several weeks. Namely, ”a significant economic downturn and extraordinary government spending associated with efforts to promote recovery may have accelerated the potential day of reckoning.” Oh, right. (Wall Street, which seemed to have forgotten about that yesterday, remembered today.)

Deloitte says that the campaign “seems to have given structure to the debate over spending and taxes in four important respects:” Read the rest of this entry »

A week after performing a nearly complete makeover of its executive suite, Cadence Design (Nasdaq: CDNS)  said today that “it is reviewing, in conjunction with the company’s independent accountants and legal advisors, the recognition of revenue related to customer contracts signed during the first quarter of 2008.”

Cadence accountants happened to notice that $24 million of contract revenue in its recently completed third quarter was already recognized during its first quarter of the year. Oops. That already-recognized revenue should “have been recognized Read the rest of this entry »

A day after voting themselves $20,000 in cash for “past services” and a day before their company filed for bankruptcy, three directors of Tvia, a fabless — and profitless — Santa Clara company focused on chips for digital displays, called it quits Tuesday, according to a filing Thursday.

Among those resigning was Read the rest of this entry »

New York Times business columnist Gretchen Morgenson will be speaking Tuesady at Santa Clara University’s Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. Business ethics? What seemed a quaint notion just a few months ago now seems like a hot topic. Her talk, entitled “Fairness, Financial Markets and the Fallout From the Subprime Crisis,” will be held from noon to 1 p.m. in Room 126 at Lucas Hall, and is open to the public.

Ms. Morgenson was a stockbroker for Dean Witter Reynolds in New York from September 1981 to January 1984,  after beginning her career at Read the rest of this entry »