Three Computer Associates execs resign
By siliconindia staff writer   |   Thursday, 09 October 2003, 19:30 IST
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ISLANDIA: Computer Associates International Inc. asked three executives, including the software maker's chief financial officer, to resign Wednesday after reviewing results of an inquiry into the company's accounting practices. The company's chief financial officer, Ira Zar, senior vice president for finance, Lloyd Silverstein, and vice president for finance, David Rivard, submitted their resignations following the release of a preliminary report by an independent auditor, chairman Sanjay Kumar said. The audit, authorized by the company's board of directors, comes amid a joint investigation by the U.S. Attorney's office and the Securities and Exchange Commission into whether company executives manipulated revenue to boost the company's stock price. The probe concerns whether the company improperly backdated and forward-dated customer contracts to shift revenues between fiscal quarters. The independent preliminary report found that a number of software contracts in the fiscal year ending on March 31, 2000, were signed after the end of the quarter, but appeared in the company's books as if they had been signed before then. Walter P. Schuetze, an outside director and former SEC chief accountant who conducted the independent review, said the contracts should have been reflected in the financial records of the quarter in which they were signed. But he said there was no evidence to suggest that the revenue from the contracts were not genuine. In the interim, Douglas Robinson was named to serve as senior vice president of finance.

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