According to statistics quoted in the LA Times, a recent study conducted by professors from Harvard and Cornell universities and the University of Chicago, of 5,800 companies studied as many as 720 appear to have backdated stock option grant dates to coincide with a low point in the stock price.

Whether you want to call it “the fox guarding the hen house” or the board being “asleep at the wheel”, Sarbanes-Oxley was established to curb this type of impropriety. In addition to board directors becoming “independent” and accountable, they also need to support transparency.

I’m sure we have not heard the end of this one.