Federal Securities Law Blog : Federal Securities Lawyer & Attorney : Porter Wright Law Firm : Securities Exchange Law : Serving Ohio, Washington DC, Florida

On Monday, January 30, 2012, the SEC filed two lawsuits in federal court in Indiana and commenced two administrative proceedings stemming from an accounting fraud scheme at the Thornton Precision Components ("TPC"), which is the Sheffield, England subsidiary of Symmetry Medical Inc. ("Symmetry"), an Indiana-based manufacturer of medical devices and aerospace products. According to the Commission, the accounting fraud at TPC "was so pervasive that it distorted the financial statements of the parent company." In those proceedings, the Commission settled charges with Symmetry and eight individuals, including the parent company's CEO and the subsidiaries' outside accountants.

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On January 11, 2012, Magistrate Judge John Acosta recommended the dismissal of the derivative lawsuit against the Board of Directors of Umpqua Holdings Corporation ("Umpqua") for breach of fiduciary duty. The lawsuit was filed after the shareholders, in an advisory vote, rejected the Board-approved executive compensation program. The Magistrate Judge found that the plaintiffs failed to make a presuit demand as required for a derivative suit and were not excused from doing so under the arguments they raised regarding the Board members' exercise of the business judgment rule or their lack of independence or disinterest. As Broc Romanek of theCorporateCounsel.Net Blog pointed out, "[t]his is the first federal court decision to dismiss such an action." Magistrate Judge Acosta has referred his Findings and Recommendations to District Judge Michael W. Mosman for review and final determination.

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Two unique insider trading cases have received a bit of attention recently. One case, brought on December 12, 2011 against a company and its former CEO, alleged that they defrauded shareholders by buying back stock at severely undervalued stock prices – at a time when the company was privately held. The second, brought on January 9, 2012 against the former CEO of company and his friend, alleged that the former tipped the latter about the upcoming acquisition of his company and resulted in a report in the Atlanta Business Chronicle that the CEO took and passed a polygraph test and was then asked by the SEC to take a second polygraph test.

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Today and tomorrow, the Federal Securities Litigation Blog will take a break from discussing the most recent events and, with a larger-than-usual entry, examine the Top 10 securities litigation stories that were the most intriguing in 2011. Undoubtedly, others will be preparing similar lists and this is not intended to be a definitive or complete version. Instead, these are the stories that piqued my interest. Half of the list will be discussed today and the other half tomorrow.

Here's a quick headline look at the bottom half of the Top 10:

10. The D.C. Circuit Vacates SEC Exchange Rule 14a-11 Regarding Shareholders' Rights to Include Board Nominee on Proxy Materials.

9. The Jenkins Litigation: Settlement Negotiations in Clawback Case Collapse, But Are Ultimately Resolved.

8. The SEC's Director of the Division of Enforcement Now Has Authority To Issue Witness Immunity Orders.

7. Where is That File? The SEC Addresses Issues Related to the Destruction of Documents and Discovery Issues Relating to their Notes.

6. The FCPA Sting Case: One Hung Jury, One On-Going Trial, A Conspiracy Count Dismissed and More to Come.

These five stories are discussed in greater detail after the jump.

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On Tuesday, November 15, 2011, the SEC announced that it had reached a settlement with Maynard L. Jenkins, the former chief executive officer of CSK Auto Corporation, who agreed to re-pay approximately $2.8 million of the over $4 million in bonus compensation and stock profits that he received while the company was committing accounting fraud. This settlement, which still most be approved by the Court, comes almost four months after the SEC rejected a previous settlement proposed by its own enforcement staff which would have recovered less than half of the amount sought in the Complaint (as previously discussed here).

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On Wednesday November 2, 2011, several media outlets reported on the details of the settlement in the shareholders derivative action filed against executives of Chesapeake Energy Corporation. The case, which was filed in state court in Oklahoma in April 2009, was on appeal after the claims were dismissed in February 2010. Under the terms of the settlement, CEO Aubrey McClendon, whose compensation in 2008 included a $75 million bonus (following a six-month period where the company's share price fell from $74 to $16.17 a share), will buy back an art collection which he sold to the company for approximately $12 million in 2008.

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In an October 13, 2011 Opinion that carefully considers the language of two insurance policies, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Office Depot, Inc. was not entitled to coverage for most of the legal fees incurred by the company while responding to inquiries from the SEC. In-house counsel would be wise to review their respective policies to determine if company would face a similar issue or would be covered if an SEC investigation occurs.

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A pair of articles appeared this week that traced trends in particular areas of securities enforcement. The Wall Street Journal presented data showing an increase in the length of sentences in insider trading cases over the last eighteen years. A second article which appeared in Corporate Counsel suggested that the SEC's settlement of a case involving back-dated options "may have symbolized the end of an era."

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In a September 20, 2011 Opinion, Judge Timothy Black of the Southern District of Ohio ruled that a lawsuit brought against senior executives and directors of Cincinnati Bell, Inc. alleging a breach of fiduciary duty regarding compensation would be allowed to proceed. The lawsuit focuses on the "say-on-pay" provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act: specifically, attacking the Board's decision to increase 2010 executive compensation in light of the nonbinding vote by 66% of the voting shareholders to reject that increase. Although the defendants argued that they are entitled to rely upon the business judgment rule in proceeding with the increase in compensation, the Court held that the issue of whether defendants properly exercised that judgment or, as plaintiff claimed, acted with deliberate intent to injure the company (or reckless disregard for the company) would be an issue based on the evidence (at trial or summary judgment) and not decided at the pleading stage.

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On Friday, September 9, the Department of Justice announced that it had entered into a Non-Prosecution Agreement with CSK Auto Corporation, a retailer of automotive parts and accessories which used to be publicly traded, to settle a criminal investigation into alleged securities law violations stemming from a corporate earnings manipulation and double-billing scheme. Under the terms of the agreement, CSK Auto will pay a $20.9 million penalty. The resolution of this matter is the latest in a series of matters being handled by both DOJ and the SEC regarding the events at CSK Auto.

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On August 30, 2011, the SEC announced it had settled a case with James O'Leary, the former CFO of Beazer Homes USA under Section 304 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Section 304's "clawback" provision requires the reimbursement of compensation from executives under certain circumstances when their companies were in material non-compliance of financial reporting requirements due to misconduct. In Mr. O'Leary's case, although he was not charged with any misconduct, he has agreed to reimburse $1.4 million he received after fraudulent financial statements were filed.

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On Monday, August 1, 2011, the SEC filed suit against eight defendants for making false statements in public filings regarding the status of the human clinical trials for the drug SF-1019 by Argyll Biotechnologies LLC. The statements did not disclose that the Food and Drug Administration had issued clinical holds on testing for the drug, which is derived from goat blood and was Argyll's sole product. In addition, three executives were charged with insider trading for selling shares of Immunosyn Corporation (the company which made the false filings) for $20 million during the same period. SEC v. Ferrone, No. 11-cv-05223 (N.D. Ill. Filed Aug. 1, 2011).

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The SEC's Commissioners have rejected a proposed settlement to "claw back" a portion of the bonuses and stock sale profits a former CEO received during a period of accounting fraud. The SEC had previously described the case as the first clawback case under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act against an individual who was not alleged to have otherwise violated the securities laws. The negotiations failed when, according to a report in the Washington Post (available here), the SEC rejected the settlement proposed by its own enforcement staff which would have recovered less than half of the amount sought in the Complaint.

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On June 30, 2011, Lee Farkas, the former Chairman of Taylor Bean & Whitaker ("TBW"), was sentenced to 30 years in prison for his role the failure of his company and of Colonial Bank. While the sentence fell short of the Government's request for a sentence of 385 years, it is likely that the 58-year old Mr. Farkas will spend the rest of his life in jail. 

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On Tuesday, April 19, 2011, in one of the first criminal trials arising out of the market crisis, a federal jury in Alexandria, Virginia convicted Lee Farkas of: one count of conspiracy to commit bank, wire and securities fraud; six counts of bank fraud; four counts of wire fraud; and three counts of securities fraud. The charges arose from Mr. Farkas' role in a $2.9 billion fraud scheme that led to the failure of Colonial Bank (which was one of the 25 largest banks in the United States in 2009), and Mr. Farkas' company, Taylor Bean & Whitaker ("TBW"), one of the largest privately held mortgage lending companies in 2009.

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In a recent national survey of CFOs and senior comptrollers conducted by Grant Thornton, over 75% of respondents said the SEC should revise Form 8-K rules to require reasons for all company dismissals of auditors, for all auditor resignations, and for all instances in which the auditor chooses not to stand for reappointment. The results suggest that CFOs feel auditors resign or are terminated for reasons that investors should know about but for which no disclosure is required. The crux of the current 8-K rules if an auditor resigns or is dismissed require that all disagreements between the auditor and the company be disclosed.

The complete survey follows. Note the split response to the last question.

Do you believe the roles of CEO and chairman of the board should be independent of each other?

Yes 78.73 %
No 20.81 %

Should the SEC revise 8-K rules to require reasons for all company dismissals of auditors, for all auditor resignations and for all instances in which the auditor chooses not to stand for reappointment?

Yes 75.57 %
No 21.72 %

Do you believe shareholders in public companies should have greater access to the proxy?

Yes 66.06 %
No 29.86 %

Do you believe that small cap companies who test internal controls (according to Sarbanes-Oxley) will be looked upon more favorably by investors than those who do not test internal controls?

Yes 68.78 %
No 29.41 %

Do you consider the newly issued guidance (AS 5) from the SEC on internal controls and the new audit standard for auditing internal controls to be a significant improvement over previous rules?

Yes 43.89 %
No 47.96 %

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The SEC is investigating misuse of a 10b5-1 trading plan by Countrywide Financial Corp CEO, Angelo Mozilo, and securities experts continue to predict that such misuse will be the next big securities scandal.

10b5-1 trading plans allow executives to trade stock without worrying about trading on material, nonpublic information, also known as insider trading. The plans are filed with the SEC and specify in advance when stock in an executive’s company will be bought and sold and at what price. The plans cannot be entered at a time when an executive has material, nonpublic information, the idea being that executives should not be able to influence when plans make purchases or sales if the executive has inside information.

Much like option backdating was exposed by an academic study that found option grants tend to occur at optimum times (which suggests insider trading), misuse of 10b5-1 plans has been suggested by a Stanford study that found such plans beat other trades by as much as 6 percent.

Examples of plan manipulation include:

• Starting a plan while aware of insider information;
• Disclosing insider information before a planned trade to maximize profits; and
• Rewriting a plan before upcoming changes in company performance.

These types of manipulation are already illegal, which could mean any impending scandal may need to be solved with better detection of wrongdoing, as opposed to new rules.

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Yesterday, ISS blogged about Booz Allen Hamilton’s annual CEO succession study, which reported several interesting findings that I also think are worth sharing. The study, which is based on the world’s 2,500 largest public companies concludes that the imperial CEO has been replaced by the inclusive CEO, as reported in the press release on the study – “The Era of The Inclusive Leader.” 

As noted in the press release, the study shows that CEOs are becoming acutely aware that in order to succeed, they must listen to the concerns of their directors, shareholders and employees, and respond timely and appropriately. Thus, the days of CEOs answering only to themselves appear to be closer to a distant memory than today’s reality. 

The study shows that boards are becoming less tolerant of current poor performance and indications of future underperformance than in the past. It used to be that boards would primarily only remove CEOs for proven underperformance, however, boards are becoming more focused on future performance and more inclined to remove CEOs based on indications of future underperformance.

The study also indicates that splitting the roles of chairman and CEO can be very beneficial to companies. Notably, in 2006, all of the underperforming CEOs of North American companies were also chairmen of their companies, or served under chairmen who were the companies’ former CEOs. The conclusion that investors benefit more when the positions of chairman and CEO are held by different individuals is a consistent conclusion on a global scale.

The press release is a quick read and I recommend checking it out.

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