Read The Recorder‘s roundup of the stock-option backdating scandal. There won’t be a test later … but there might be a subpoena.
Ignacio Salceda, a Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati partner representing BEA in the case, also declined to comment.
Plaintiff lawyers have had mixed results in going after companies caught up in the backdating scandal. A federal judge dismissed two lawsuits against Apple Inc. in November, including one that argued that the stock price had been diluted because of backdating. In a big win for plaintiff lawyers, Mercury Interactive Corp. agreed to pay $117.5 million to settle shareholder suits in October.
BEA was first sued in the summer of 2006 over backdating in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The company admitted to misdating options after an internal investigation in February of that year.
The company has also been sued a number of times in Delaware over the company’s rejection of Oracle’s bid, including one suit from billionaire investor Carl Icahn, who took a big stake in the company and urged it to look for a buyer.
