Negative Public Perception
While it is true that many forms of backdating are not fraudulent or criminal in nature, there is a largely prevalent public opinion that all forms of backdating are the equivalent of fraud. This is not always the case, according to a ruling by federal judge William Alsup of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. According to Alsup’s reasoning and subsequent ruling, it is improper to infer fraudulent activity based solely on the occurrence of options backdating – further facts must be present and proven before the act can be considered to be fraudulent.
Another public perception is that options backdating stems from executive corruption. While this conclusion is logical in cases of options backdating in which executives knowingly participated in the criminal actions, options backdating can be a result of normal accounting or corporate policies that are not criminal in nature, and is a legal practice as long as the backdated contract is appropriately reported for tax purposes.
Read more about this topic: Options Backdating
Famous quotes containing the words negative, public and/or perception:
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“We can teach prevention. For little kids, the best protection is that they should not be alone in public places. All children should be conscious of strangers, and be discriminating and wary of them. This won’t make them grow up suspicious as long as they have adults around whom they know and can trust: relatives, friends of their parents, parents of friends.”
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“What, then, is the basic difference between today’s computer and an intelligent being? It is that the computer can be made to see but not to perceive. What matters here is not that the computer is without consciousness but that thus far it is incapable of the spontaneous grasp of pattern—a capacity essential to perception and intelligence.”
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