Ellison to pay $122 million in settlement

Software mogul Larry Ellison has agreed to pay $122 million in a revised settlement with Oracle shareholders, the terms of which were approved on Tuesday by a California judge.

The suit, filed in 2001 by a group of shareholders, charged that Ellison, chief executive of Oracle, and Jeff Henley, the company's chief financial officer at the time, sold shares while knowing the company would soon report an earnings shortfall.

Ellison offered in September to settle the case with $100 million in charitable donations and without admitting wrongdoing. But a California judge declined to approve the proposed settlement because it called for Oracle to pay $24 million in lawyers' fees, saddling shareholders with extra costs.

The terms of the new, approved settlement leave the $100 million payment to charities intact while requiring Ellison to pay $22 million in legal fees.

"This provision makes an excellent settlement even better," Joseph Tabacco, the attorney who brought the case, said in a statement.

The charity payments are an unusual way to settle such a case. Typically, settlement payments would go directly to the company, in this case Oracle. "But with Mr. Ellison owning a quarter of Oracle's stock, much of such a direct payment, in effect, would have gone to him," Tabacco continued in a statement.

"That is one key reason why it made sense to structure the payment from Mr. Ellison in the form of charitable contributions in Oracle?s name, enabling the company to accrue goodwill without a large chunk of the payments flowing back to Mr. Ellison," he said.

Under the settlement, Ellison will choose the charities that receive donations in Oracle's name under the approval of Oracle's board. He has five years to distribute the money.

Tabacco called the size of the settlement "unprecedented." Yet it's a minor dent in Ellison's personal fortune of $17 billion, which recently landed him the No. 5 spot on Forbes magazine's list of the wealthiest people in the country.

[yrrahxob]

Why am I not surprised

Another case of a "drop in the bucket fine" to a powerful CEO and the lawyers get richer and no telling how much the judge made off the deal. And now he has five years to distribute the money. He can make a nice chunk of change just from the interest that amount of money can draw over five years. The common stockholders are still the big losers all around.

[Hernys]

Why?

And Martha Stewart got jail?

[SqlserverCode]

Nice Tax Break

Since he is 'donating' the money he can write it off

http://sqlservercode.blogspot.com/

[thanhvn]

why not do this...

since 25% of the payment would flow back to Ellison if direct payment is chosen, why not just jack up the total payment from 100 to 133? that way, the shareholders still get 100, which is a way better deal than giving Ellison a large tax break? and the lawyers get 22mil for _not_ thinking of this?