/biz/ - Business & Finance

https://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/lr16829.htm

>SEC Files Settled Case Against Three Executive Officers of Microstrategy Inc., Obtaining Injunctions, $10 Million in Disgorgement and $ 1 Million in Penalties

>MicroStrategy materially overstated its revenues and earnings from the sales of software and information services contrary to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles.

>the defendants consented to the entry of a final judgment permanently enjoining each of them from violating the antifraud and record-keeping provisions of the federal securities laws ordering them to pay disgorgement totaling $10 million (Saylor -- $8,280,000, Bansal -- $1,630,000, Lynch -- $138,000) and ordering each to pay a $350,000 civil penalty.

>The Commission simultaneously instituted a settled administrative proceeding against MicroStrategy ordering the company to cease and desist from violating the reporting, books and records and internal controls provisions of the federal securities laws, and to engage in certain undertakings to effect future compliance with those provisions.

https://www.sec.gov/litigation/admin/34-43724.htm

>From the time of its initial public offering in June 1998 through March 2000, MicroStrategy, Inc., a software company whose securities are listed on NASDAQ, materially overstated its revenues and earnings contrary to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles ("GAAP"). In fact, as investors later learned, MicroStrategy should have reported net losses from 1997 through the present.

>In at least three instances, MicroStrategy recognized revenue on transactions that were not completed or signed by either party prior to the close of the quarter.

>Similarly, on September 30, 1999, the last day of MicroStrategy's 1999 third quarter, negotiations with NCR Corporation over a $27.5 million transaction continued past midnight. MicroStrategy signed the final contract sometime in the early hours of October 1, 1999