Securities Fraud Lawyer - Affiliated Computer Services, Inc. (ACS) Stock Option Backdating Litigation

Shapiro Haber & Urmy LLP filed a shareholder derivative action on behalf of Affiliated Computer Services, Inc. (ACS) against certain current and former directors and officers of the company.  The complaint was filed on May 2, 2006 in the Chancery Court of Delaware  (ACS is a Delaware corporation).  The Defendants in this case included ACS Chairman and Founder Darwin Deason and two former Chief Executive Officers of ACS, Jeffrey Rich and Mark King.

This action was brought to recover damages caused to ACS as a result of the Defendants’ systematic backdating of ACS stock options issued to the Defendants and others, in violation of ACS’s stock option plans. The Defendants also caused ACS to misrepresent, in its SEC filings, ACS’s stock option granting processes. ACS admitted that its stock options were improperly issued and that those practices caused ACS to overstate its earnings between 1994 and 2006 by approximately $51 million.

The parties agreed to a settlement that was valued at more than $40 million.  This settlement was approved by the 193rd Judicial District Court of Dallas County, Texas on May 21, 2009.  The parties agreed to settle the Delaware case along with a parallel case in Texas.