Corporations & securities brief ~ Krispy Kreme hires former Enron restructuring expert News
Corporations & securities brief ~ Krispy Kreme hires former Enron restructuring expert

[JURIST] Leading Tuesday's corporations and securities law news, Krispy Kreme Doughnuts Inc. [corporate website] announced the company will replace its chairman and chief executive with Stephen Cooper, a restructuring expert who most recently conducted Enron's [corporate website] turnaround. The company's stock collapse is attributed to shareholder lawsuits and a SEC probe of its accounting. Read the Krispy Kreme press release here. Reuters has more.

In other news…

  • As previously reported on JURIST's Paper Chase, trials involving former corporate leaders of Tyco International [corporate website] and WorldCom, now MCI, [corporate web site] are both set to begin this week, with both expected to last weeks to months, as the executives are tried on a variety of fraud charges. JURIST has background on the previous trial [JURIST archive]. AP has more. Additionally, the judge in former WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers' trial made several evidentiary rulings today, including one to allow defense attorneys to question a prosecution witness about alleged marital infidelity and another barring evidence that Ebbers knew of congressional hearings on the Enron collapse. AP has more.
  • The SEC [official website] has launched an informal inquiry into flash memory company Silicon Storage Technology Inc. [corporate website] over the company's share trading prior to December 20 when it updated its fourth-quarter forecasts. The target of the probe is an executive officer and a company director. Read the Silicon Storage SEC filing announcing the inquiry [PDF]. Reuters has more.
  • Google [corporate website] has reached an agreement with the SEC over a failure to register employee stock options prior to the company's IPO last summer. Under the agreement, Google and the company's general counsel, David C. Drummond, will admit no wrongdoing but will refrain from violating federal securities registration and financial disclosure requirements. The SEC did not levy a fine against either party. Read the SEC press release . Newsfactor Network has more.
  • Liberty Media International [corporate website], a global cable group, announced a near $3.5 billion cash and share offer to take control of United-GlobalCom [corporate website], its partly-owned European affiliate. The Financial Times has more.
  • Oracle Corp. [corporate website] announced it will continue to support PeopleSoft [corporate website] products until 2013. The announcement comes after the company revealed a plan to fire 5,000 workers as a result of the planned merger. AP has more.

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