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 »

Immersion will pay a $20.75 million one-time payment to Microsoft to settle breach-of-contract charges the software giant brought against the San Jose developer and licensor of touch feedback technology in June 2007.

Microsoft alleged that Immersion breached a sub-license agreement executed in connection with the settlement in 2003 of Immersion’s claims of patent infringement against Microsoft in Immersion v. Microsoft, Sony. Microsoft maintained it was entitled to Read the rest of this entry »

Immersion, the San Jose maker of “touch technology’ used to control computing devices, was told last year by its compensation consultant that its “lack of a comprehensive bonus plan was a significant competitive disadvantage”. And so the board’s compensation committee set out to create a cash bonus plan to “incentivize and reward our executive officers for excellent performance”, according to the company’s proxy last year, but under which “no payments will be made if our financial performance does not meet certain yet-to-be-determined targets.”

Tuesday the company revealed in an SEC filing that its chief executive, Victor Viegas, earned exactly $0 under the executive incentive plan the committee set up, which led us to think he didn’t meet his target. But the company also reported paying Viegas a $75,000 cash bonus “in recognition of (his) role in leading Immersion to achieve its corporate goals in 2007.”

We know that the SEC has made a distinction between a bonus, which may be discretionary, and non-equity incentive compensation (cash, not stock), which must be based on achievement of specified performance measurements. But what strikes us a bogus is the “reason” cited for giving Viegas a bonus. It makes no sense. Better to just give him the money and stay mum, don’t you think?