Legal News

Kent Roberts, Alleged Stock-Options Backdater, Wins Total Acquittal

By Ashby Jones

Someone must have put something in our coffee, because we’re just filled with law-firm love this morning.

Kudos to the folks out at Cooley Godward, who, after a years-long battle, have managed to extricate Kent Roberts, the former GC of McAfee, out of a whole heap of potential trouble related to stock-options backdating. On Thursday, the SEC dropped its charges against Roberts. It was the second big win for Roberts in the past six months. Last October, a jury acquitted Roberts on criminal charges that he’d misdated stock-options. (Click here for the Recorder story on the SEC news; here for a LB post from last fall on the acquittal; here for the LB’s first post on Roberts from May of 2006; click here for the DOJ’s initial press release on its indictment.)

The SEC wasn’t even able to exact a fine from Roberts, like it did with so many other executives caught up in the backdating scandal. “It’s a complete vindication for Kent,” said William Freeman, a Cooley Godward Kronish partner who represented Roberts, along with partners Stephen Neal and Neal Stephens (yes, those are really their names).

Roberts, who was fired by the Santa Clara, Calif.-based computer security firm in 2006 and then charged by the government in 2007, issued a prepared statement.

“This has been a very trying time for me and my family. I trusted in God that the truth would come out,” he said. “Of course, I have nothing but praise and respect for Cooley Godward Kronish and the work they did in achieving justice for me.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on March 20, 2009 (boomark / email).