Backdating scandal escalates

Equity analysts and institutional investors have joined regulators and the US Department of Justice in a hunt to identify companies that backdated options grants - that is, purposely specified a share price measurement date for options valuation retroactively on a day when a company's shares traded at a lower price. So, although options are reported as being granted at-the-money, they are in-the-money, generating an immediate mark-to-market gain for the recipient.

By the end of May, two of th