Lawyers for executives of Irvine-based Broadcom Corp. recently met with a Justice Department official to try and head off indictments over backdated stock options at the Irvine chipmaker, according to a report.
The lawyers met with Alice Fisher, chief of the criminal division at the Justice Department, according to a Friday story in Los Angeles-based law newspaper Daily Journal, which cited an unnamed source close to the case.
The story didn’t say which executives the lawyers were representing.
Last year, Broadcom took charges of $2.2 billion to past earnings as a result of options backdating, more than any of the 150 or so companies that were investigated.
The company’s own report on options laid blame with ex-chief executive and cofounder Henry Nicholas and other former executives.
The Daily Journal story raises questions about the roles of Broadcom general counsel David Dull and Henry Samueli, the company’s cofounder, chairman and chief technology officer.
Lawyers for the Securities and Exchange Commission alleged Dull and Samueli played a role in backdated options, according to the story. Lawyers for the executives declined to comment.
The issue came up as part of an SEC settlement with former Broadcom human resources executive Nancy Tullos.
In March, Tullos agreed to pay $1.3 million to the SEC as part of its ongoing probe into options at Broadcom.
In a separate criminal investigation, Tullos struck a deal with federal prosecutors late last year and agreed to plead guilty to one count of obstruction of justice in exchange for her cooperation.
Tullos, who left Broadcom in 2004, is scheduled to be sentenced in the criminal case on May 5. She’s likely to avoid prison for working with prosecutors.
