San Diego Union Tribune/Bloomberg News

Stock options probed at 50 firms; Peregrine, in 2003, was first backdating target

July 18, 2006

By Otis Bilodeau and Miles Weiss

...At Peregrine, backdating was part of what the SEC alleged was a "massive financial fraud" that included inflating revenue and selling false invoices to banks. The stock-option violations are listed in a section of the SEC's 15-page complaint, and the agency didn't mention them in the statement it released on the Peregrine fraud.

"Given the train wreck Peregrine became, backdating was the least of their worries," said Thomas McNamara, a San Diego attorney who represented the software company. "Now backdating is the crime du jour."...