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Posted by: ITNovaScotia Admin	Wednesday, July 05, 2006
JUL. 5 9:09 A.M. ET Database management software maker Quest Software Inc. said Wednesday it will restate annual and interim financial statements for 2000 through 2005 and for the quarter ending March 31 as the result of initial findings of a special committee review of stock option grants. Quest is one of more than 50 companies under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission or federal prosecutors for questionable stock option granting practices. The allegation is that some of these companies backdated stock option grants to coincide with share price lows in order to increase gains when the stock was sold. The panel's review centered on administrative processes used to establish the option exercise price and obtain required approvals of stock option grants, and the related measurement dates used for financial reporting purposes. Its preliminary finding is that the administrative approvals required to establish the accounting measurement dates for many of the company's stock option grants awarded during the fall of 1999 and into 2002 were actually obtained after the measurement dates used for financial reporting purposes... See the full story at Business Week Online

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Re: Quest to make restatements after review	By Tom R. on Friday, July 07, 2006
Lot of companies getting hit by this; apple getting sued now by investors I read somewhere. Looks like when the states changed how the stock options rules worked after the .com bubble burst six or seven years ago that a lot of companies didn't get a good handle on the new rules and are now paying for it.

Re: Quest to make restatements after review	By SS on Friday, July 07, 2006
Lots of fun new rules and audits mainly a result of the new Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) regulations that were more a result of Worldcom and Enron. Any US public company is now subject to multiple audits, covering everything thing from the accounting side right down to IT change requests. Quest probably just got caught up in some accounting or regulatory rule change.

Re: Quest to make restatements after review	By Tom R. on Friday, July 07, 2006
It can't be SOXs related. That's a whole different thing - SOXs is more to do with reporting and accountability than anything with stock options. only really stocks bit is more accurate reporting on insider trading. worldcom didn't even make their first big announcement until AFTER SOXs was already in the works.