After an extensive internal review, the company concluded that no violation of Regulation FD occurred, Siebel said. The SEC has not provided any credible evidence that the company believes supports the SEC’s allegations.
The SEC sued Siebel on Tuesday, saying its CFO Kenneth Goldman gave Morgan Stanley analysts and institutional upbeat outlooks on Siebel’s sales pipeline during private meetings in New York in April last year.
At the same time, the SEC says, public investors were only aware of less-positive outlooks from the company. The SEC alleges Siebel’s former director of investor relations Mark Hanson failed to prevent the alleged disclosures.
Last time Siebel was accused of violating Regulation FD, which forbids officers giving market-moving information to a privileged few at the expense of other investors, it paid $250,000 and agreed to a cease-and-desist order to settle the charges.
This time, the company is set to fight it out in civil court. Siebel said it believes it has meritorious defenses to the lawsuit and is prepared to pursue resolution of this matter through the normal course of civil litigation.
