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[Jim is Jim]

roni:

FBI, prosecutors target stock options
By Kevin Drawbaugh
51 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal prosecutors and the FBI in Northern California have formed a task force to investigate allegations of stock option grant manipulation by local companies, U.S. authorities said on Thursday.

With about 60 companies nationwide known to be under investigation in the latest scandal to hit corporate America, U.S. Attorney Kevin Ryan in San Francisco said the task force in his region is investigating "several Bay Area companies."

"We will investigate whether individuals and companies may have deliberately backdated stock options with the intent to defraud," Ryan said in a statement.

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Many of the companies involved are based in and around Northern California's Silicon Valley.

An influential finance professor said separately on Thursday that as many as 1,000 companies -- far more than the roughly 60 known to be under scrutiny -- appear to have manipulated stock option grant dates.

University of Iowa Professor Erik Lie said his research, examining 8,000 companies, suggests "at least 1,000 ... at some point manipulated or backdated their option grants."

Lie made his remarks on a conference call held by Institutional Shareholder Services, a proxy voting and corporate governance services firm.

Lie is the author or co-author of key academic studies that helped expose questionable options timing now at the center of the fast-widening scandal.

Cupertino, California-based Apple Computer Inc., (Nasdaq:AAPL - news) said last month that its own internal probe uncovered option grant "irregularities" from 1997 to 2001.

Among Northern California high-tech firms that have disclosed getting subpoenas over stock options are Altera Corp. (Nasdaq:ALTR - news), Applied Micro Circuits Corp. (Nasdaq:AMCC - news), Equinix Inc. (Nasdaq:EQIX - news), and Foundry Networks Inc. (Nasdaq:FDRY - news).