Today we’ve learnt that, after the ongoing Fishergate at HP and all the trailing episodes that keep it up, we have some sort of Intelgate at Dell’s.
Several millionaire fines have been set on Michael Dell and Dell Inc after inappropriate accounting practices from 2001 and 2006. Details published recently.
One of the funny aspects of the story is that Dell Inc is quoted as having won (!) a judge’s permission to pay $100M to settle accounting fraud claims.
What a victory, we’d say. Who call’s a $100M fine a “win”? The only reasonable explanation we could think of is that Dell Inc feared a much higher cost… derived perhaps from a murkier feeling of guilt?
Another $4M fine to Michael Dell that will allow him to continue as the company CEO. Well, sounds cheap, according to the earnings of other CEOs in the industry. Just recall the recent figures published about HP’s Apotheker, who got about that much just for signing up for his new job, and another $4.6M for moving house to California, or Yahoo’s Carol Bartz, who tops the list of well paid toppers… Oracle’s Ellison being the 6th fortune in the planet…
Adding the fines imposed to Dell Inc, We would compare that to the hypothetical impact had this company not injected the money coming from Intel into the financial statements. Still would probably seem a bargain, we think.
In 1973, Richard Nixon defended his record strongly by declaring to the Washington Post “I’m not a crook” in the arch-famous Watergate affair.
A famous quote indeed, probably still familiar to many Americans, who learnt then that the Top Guy was abusing his resources in a fraudulent manner.
Maybe these days there is another Top Guy that is trying to convince himself that he’s not a crook since he won’t probably convince others. Maybe he should have watched carefully TV in 1973.
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