The Intranet at work has a news article collection that gets updated all the time. It pulls from just about every text news source. From there I find out all kinds of interesting things.
According to the Dow Jones (in part quoting the Washington Post), Royal Ahold (the Dutch food retailer, possibly the biggest food retailer in the world once you add it all up) is going after some executives that caused some trouble.
The executives in question, three of the top people at Ahold's US Foodservice division, were mucking about with earnings statements, overstating profits by over one billion. Ahold took a $3.1 billion write-off last year because of it.
So Ahold is demanding they give back part of their 2000 and 2001 bonuses. Smart. Hit them where it hurts. I don't think major executives fear jail. They have lawyers to help them dodge that. Oh, but their lives are built on their money and their power and their status. Take all three of those away from executives? That makes an interesting deterrent to the others.
We'll see if it gets followed through on. I'm not sure if there's legal ways to force it to happen.
Posted by fictionman at March 6, 2004 08:07 AM