The spotlight was on prosecutorial misconduct when a judge recently dismissed stock option backdating charges against several Broadcom Corporation executives.

In tossing the case on Dec. 15, the judge blasted the government for multiple missteps by one of its lawyers. But lost in the uproar was what former general counsel David Dull had to say about Broadcom’s option process. Testifying in the trial of the company’s ex-CFO, Dull said that the chip maker had a loose way of making grants — a situation he tried to help fix as general counsel.