Federal prosecutors are weighing criminal indictments of Broadcom Corp. cofounder Henry Samueli and general counsel David Dull, the Irvine chipmaker said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Tuesday.
Broadcom said it is cooperating with a criminal probe into the backdating of stock options at the company by the U.S. Attorney’s office in Santa Ana.
Criminal charges are widely expected in the probe. Tuesday’s filing marks the first time Broadcom said the executives could be indicted.
Prosecutors also are considering indictments of former chief executive Henry Nicholas, who left in 2003, and former chief financial officer William Ruehle, who left in 2006.
All four executives deny wrongdoing.
Samueli and Dull took leaves of absence from the company last week after the SEC sued them, as well as Nicholas and Ruehle, in what regulators called a “massive fraud scheme” to backdate stock options.
Broadcom itself settled an SEC lawsuit in April by paying $12 million without admitting or denying wrongdoing.
In early 2007, the company took charges of more than $2 billion to past earnings to fix misdated options.
Broadcom said in its SEC filing that its board elected Alvin Segel as the company’s acting general counsel to replace Dull. Segal is a senior partner of the law firm Irell & Manella LLP.
