Shareholders May Get Material on Internet

The SEC commissioners voted 5-0 at a public meeting to allow companies to provide the annual proxy material electronically rather than requiring them to mail the bulky documents to shareholders. The proposal, which was opened to a 60-day public comment period, is expected to save U.S. corporations some $500 million a year or more in printing and postage costs.

It could be formally adopted by the SEC sometime after the comment period, but would not take effect until 2007.

Mutual Fund Settlements Coming to an End?

We may be at the end of the mutual fund market timing scandal settlements. The Washington Post is reporting that Federated Investors became mutual fund number 14 to settle improper trading charges, agreeing to pay $100 million to settle charges against it.

NASD Arbitrators Award $2M In Merrill Sex-Discrimination Case

Three female brokers from the Merrill Lynch Princeton NJ office received an arbitration award of 2 million dollars. The brokers claimed that their managers of denying them access to walk-in customers, deprived them of adequate support staff, and defamation and other discriminatory behavior.

More Reg FD Cases Coming SEC Won't Appeal Dismissal of Reg FD Case Against Siebel

As the SEC announced that it would not appeal the dismissal of the Reg FD case against Siebel's chief financial officer, it's spokesman made it a point of stating that it has about a dozen other Reg FD cases pending.

Let's hope for their sake that they have a better case this time.

For those of you who missed it, the SEC had accused Kenneth Goldman, Siebel's chief financial officer, of tipping off institutional investors at two private events in 2003 by characterizing the company's performance as 'good' or 'better' and noting that there were $5 million deals in the software company's pipeline. The SEC believed that the disclosure violated Reg FD, and commenced proceedings. In September, a federal judge ruled that the statements were, in essence, the same as the chief executive officer's forecasts in a public conference call two weeks prior.

ImClone Insider Trading Cases Settle

Martha Stewart went to jail for lying about her ImClone sales, and was not prosecuted for insider trading. In my discussions on the subject one of my points was that the SEC would have had a very difficult time proving the inside trading allegation, which was why the US Attorney did not charge her with that violation in the criminal case.

Now we learn that the US Attorney has dropped the criminal insider trading cases against other ImClone tippees, and they will not be criminally prosecuted. While that event comes with their agreement to pay some 2.8 million in disgorgement and penalties, I would be willing to bet that Marth would have paid the combined sum of $200,000 to the SEC to settle the insider trading civil case, than to spend 5 months in a federal prision for lying.