It is acting like the only such task force in the nation.
Typically the contact comes in the form of a grand jury subpoena.
“Then you have both insider trading and you have an accounting issue,” Ryan said.
“An old-fashioned cooking-the-books fraud.”
(The options would be worthless if the stock fell below $10.)
That’s precisely what federal investigators are looking into.
Tax laws could also be triggered because of different rates for deducting different types of stock options.
Lie said in an interview on Thursday that three company features contribute to backdating.
“Small firms tend to do it more than large firms,” he said.
“Firms with higher stock price volatility tend to do it more than others.
Tech firms tend to do it more than others.”
