True or false: Firms rigged options to make bundle for CEOs

by Jay Hancock (Baltimore Sun)
May 28, 2006

In case you had any remaining delusions that, for some executives,
running a publicly traded corporation is a career or a solemn civic
obligation rather than a get-rich-quick scheme, keep reading.

The unfolding "options timing" scandal, as triggered by regulators,
The Wall Street Journal and a finance professor at the University of
Iowa, looks like another low of cynicism and bad faith from corporate
leaders, even if some of it doesn't turn out to be illegal.

As bad as Enron and WorldCom? Not in terms of dollars stolen or stock
value destroyed. But emerging details on options timing seem likely to
reveal a new crop of unscrupulous and selfish bosses, just when you
thought last week's Enron convictions closed the book on the 1990s.

By the Journal's count, about two dozen companies, including Belcamp-
based SafeNet, have disclosed they are being investigated by federal
authorities or their own boards for potential options improprieties.
New probes are revealed almost daily.