Last Friday, the SEC settled charges with Analog Devices over fraudulent misstatement of income for the year 1998 through 2002.

As is the tradition in these cases, the company neither admitted or denied its wrongdoing - and the same goes for the CEO Jerald Fishman, who had been charged along with the company. Analog escapes with a $3 million civil penalty; Fishman, a $1 million civil penalty and a disgorgement of $450,000, plus prejudgment interest of $42,110. The disgorgement is the amount of "in-the-money" benefit that accrued to Fishman from selling stock obtained through a backdated option grant.

The amount of understated compensation expense in the period relating to three grants: $30.7 million pretax, $21.8 million aftertax. The company also had a shoddy practice of granting options just before the release of favorable public information  - and this was not a basis for the actions against the company, because the practice predated 2006 proxy disclosure rules that required disclosure of grant practices. Slimy, nonetheless.