SEC terminates Selestica investigation: no enforcement action planned - blogs.mercurynews.com/docudrama

SEC terminates Selestica investigation: no enforcement action planned

Posted by Jack Davis on July 22nd, 2008 at 1:25 pm | Categorized as Backdating, SEC, Selectica, Uncategorized | Tagged as Backdating, Departures, Hirings, Options, SEC, Selectica

Selectica
got some good news sent its way earlier this month from the San
Francisco office of the Securities and Exchange Commission, which told the company
that an informal investigation it had undertaken into the company’s
past stock option granting practices “has been terminated, and no enforcement action has been recommended.”

A special committee of Selectica’s board of directors released its
own conclusions last August, saying that some “retrospective selection”
of option grant dates had in fact taken place. That same day it named a
new chief executive, Robert Jurkowski, and the demoted the old chief
executive, Stephen Bennion, who had previously been Selectica’s chief
financial officer when much of the back dating took place.

Back in October, when the company finally became current in its SEC
filings that had been delayed pending the results of its own
investigation, Jurkowski said, “We can now move forward without
distraction on our plans to drive growth and profitability in the
business and create long-term value for our shareholders.”

Jurkowski quit July 1 and stepped down as chairman of the board,
which is now co-chaired by James Thanos and Brenda Zawatski, who will
also be active in day-to-day operations until a new CEO is named. In
the meantime, the board is now “conducting an extensive review of the
company’s business and expects to provide additional details of the
restructuring plan and an updated financial outlook for the company’s
current fiscal year 2009 in its next quarterly report.

Last week, the company named
a new vice president for sales. In June, the company lost its chief
financial officer, who quit to join another public company in a
“different industry.”