SEC Launches Take-Two Investigation

crecente writes "Take-Two, already the subject of a Grand Jury inquiry, is now being 'informally investigated' by the Securities and Exchange Commission. This latest investigation looks at stock option grants made by the company from Jan. 1997 to the present. Just how many investigations can a publically traded company handle before their stock turns to worthless paste?"

"informal"?

[Iphtashu Fitz]

Since when does the SEC launch "informal" investigations, and more importantly, since when does the SEC acknowledge that they're investigating any company? The SEC is a bit like the Spanish Inquisition [mit.edu] (NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition!), in that you don't know they're investigating you until they come knocking on your door with subpoenas and start carting aways boxes full of corporate financial documents.

No Big Deal

[jjohnson]

The SEC has launched a very wide ranging inquiry that's touching virtually every major tech company from the 90s. The issue is the backdating of stock options to the stock's lowest price in the period, and how that was accounted for financially. It's not clear what's been done wrong by anyone, and looks like some fairly technical accounting issues will result in some fines for improper handling of the charges. Regardless, this is cleanup of the wild west 90s, when everyone was handing out options like candy. It says nothing about Take Two that it doesn't likewise say about every dot com.

Re:how many?

[pimpimpim]

you know, I get the impression that in this case someone's really trying to spread FUD over this company. At least starting lots of investigations against it, at the same time, so the outcome becomes even more uncertain. Say, if they would have done this after the first one ended succesfully, then stockholders would be more secure about the outcome of the next one. But now, the uncertainity that they will survive all this is big, making people fear about their stock, and doubt about the feature. Seems like all ingredients are there to kill off Take Two even without any real arguments to be found.