Marvell Technology, the Bermuda-based chip company that operates out of Santa Clara, said today that it has agreed to resolve a shareholder class action lawsuit filed in August 2007 related to the way the company granted stock options in the past.
The company will pay $72 million and has decided Read the rest of this entry »
Apple shareholders will be getting a “say on pay” after all.
Beginning next year, Apple will allow investors to have an annual advisory vote on its executive pay packages, the company said Monday in a statement. After repeatedly saying that shareholders had lost a vote on the matter at its annual meeting in February, Apple acknowledged in the statement that it had miscounted shareholder votes, mistakenly counting abstentions as no votes.
In a post on Friday, I noted that Apple seemed to have changed the way it counts shareholder votes over the last year. More shareholder votes were cast in favor of “say on pay” this year than last, and the gap between yes and no votes on the matter had widened. Despite that, Apple said last year that the matter had passed, while saying this year that it failed.
Sometime in the last year, Apple seems to have changed the way it tallies shareholder votes.
At its annual meeting with investors in February, Apple announced that shareholders had voted down all investor-sponsored proposals, including a widely watched one that urged the company to allow shareholders to vote every year on its executive compensation practices.
The result was something of a surprise, given that a similar say-on-pay proposal had passed the previous year and the say-on-pay movement has been gaining strength ever since.
A day after repricing underwater options held by a couple hundred of its employees, Integrated Silicon Solutions filed details Tuesday of a proposed settlement of a lawsuit against the company and some of its current and past executives and members of its board over allegations of stock option backdating.
Although the defendants in the matter — including the company’s chief executive, Jimmy Lee — deny “each and every allegation” made in the complaint, Read the rest of this entry »
Take-Two Interactive has agreed to fork over $3 million as a civil penalty related to allegations the company backdated options. Although the company took the step, “(w)ithout admitting or denying the SEC’s allegations”, Take-Two Interactive acknowledged to the District Attorney serving the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York “that certain of its former directors and officers engaged in Read the rest of this entry »
Blackberry maker Research-In-Motion and four of its top executives were charged today by the Securities and Exchange Commission with backdating millions of stock option grants over an eight year period from 1998 through 2006. In its complaint, the SEC alleges that RIM’s former Chief Financial Officer Dennis Kavelman, former finance Vice President Angelo Loberto, and Co-Chief Executive Officers James Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis (pictured here with the Blackberry Pearl) illegally granted undisclosed, in-the-money options to RIM executives and employees, and that they “made false and misleading disclosures about how RIM priced and accounted for options, and that the illicit backdating provided the executives and other employees with millions of dollars in undisclosed compensation.”
The executives are specifically accused of Read the rest of this entry »
John Gifford, who founded analog chip maker Maxim Integrated Products and served as its chief executive until his retirement in 2007, passed away Sunday of an apparent heart attack, according to a company press release distributed Monday.
Gifford was born in 1941 and grew up in Los Angeles. After graduating from UCLA in 1963 with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, he worked for Fairchild Semiconductor, first in sales in L.A. and later in marketing in Silicon Valley.
An industry legend, Gifford was one of the many engineers 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 »
Lam Research’s chief executive, Stephen Newberry, finally became an outright owner of his company’s stock last month when he exercised an option to buy 5,250 shares of the company for $11.66 each, or $61,215. The shares were the last left in an option granted to him 10 years ago that were to expire Thursday.
Newberry hasn’t owned any of his company’s stock for at least Read the rest of this entry »
Maxim Integrated Products, the Sunnyvale chip maker that hasn’t filed financial reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission since May 2006 because of an investigation into its past stock option granting practices, said Monday it reached a settlement of a shareholder lawsuit over the matter.
The legal action, brought against some of the company’s current and former executive officers and directors, included no admission of “wrongdoing or fault” on their part. Such settlements almost never do.
However, Read the rest of this entry »
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