Blog Post February 1, 2017

Seattle Times: Feature on Employee Ownership

In a January 21 article, Seattle Times journalist George Erb describes the newly employee-owned company Charter Construction and several other Washington-based companies.
Blog Post December 15, 2011

SEC Alleges Fraudulent Stock Valuation at Stiefel Labs

On December 12, the SEC sued Stiefel Laboratories and its then-CEO Charles Stiefel for defrauding plan participants and other shareholders of $110 million by purchasing shares from them at "severely undervalued prices." Stiefel Labs, which was privately held at the time of the purchases and is cu
Blog Post July 1, 2009

SEC Approves Path for Monetizing Employee Options

On June 17, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a new rule allowing employees with vested stock options to use them as collateral to purchase call options on the same company's stock as a way to obtain some cash value for the shares they can exercise.
Blog Post February 1, 2007

SEC Approves Zions Bancorp's Market-Based Option Valuation Method

In a January 25, 2007, letter to Zions Bancorp, SEC Chief Accountant Conrad Hewitt approved the bank's proposal to value its employee stock options based on the bank's auction of a tracking security called employee stock ownership appreciation rights (ESOARS).
Blog Post February 21, 2002

SEC Finalizes Disclosure Rules

The Securities and Exchange Commission has finalized disclosure rules for equity compensation plans. The required disclosure is in addition to SFAS 123 accounting rules that already require companies to disclose substantial information about their plans.
Blog Post August 1, 2018

SEC Increases Limit on Rule 701 Exemption

Effective July 23, the SEC adopted new rules (PDF) to increase the amount companies can offer in stock to employees without meeting reporting requirements applicable to public companies from $5 million to $10 million.