Opinion ID: 616835
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Samenuk and Matin Grants

Text: McAfee also had reason to suspect Roberts of wrong-doing in connection with the Samenuk and Matin grants. Roberts' own emails suggested he had made a unilateral decision to lower the exercise price for the Samenuk Grant after the Compensation Committee approved it. On January 15, the day of the Committee meeting, Roberts wrote an email to other executives explaining that the Committee had approved the grant as of January 15, 2002 at $27.19. The next day, when the share price dropped, he wrote in another email, Let's price the 420,000 option shares at today's closing price of $25.43. True, the meeting minutes that Roberts prepared reflected that the grant was to be priced as of the 16th, not the 15th, and one Committee member who testified could not say that the minutes had been falsified. But these facts do not defeat probable cause. The discrepancy between Roberts' two emails would justify reasonable suspicion that he revised the price unilaterally and later conformed the meeting minutes to his action. In addition, under California law, the indictment itself created a prima facie presumption that probable cause existed for the underlying prosecution. Conrad, 447 F.3d at 768. Although the presumption may be rebutted if the indictment was based on false evidence, Williams v. Hartford Ins. Co., 147 Cal.App.3d 893, 195 Cal. Rptr. 448, 452 (1983), Roberts has never suggested that that is what happened here. Howrey disclosed the meeting minutes along with Roberts' emails in its presentation. On the basis of that evidence, prosecutors made an independent decision to charge him for improperly backdating the Samenuk Grant, and that charging decision created a presumption of probable cause that Roberts has not rebutted. There was likewise probable cause of wrongdoing with respect to the Matin Grant. The SEC alleged that Roberts signed proxy statements that he knew, or should have known, failed to disclose that the grant had been backdated to a date before Matin began working at McAfee. Roberts clearly knew about the backdating; his notes from the committee meeting authorizing the grant say Art Matin, Backdating of options. And Roberts does not deny that he signed the misleading proxy statements. His only complaint is that Howrey's presentation omitted a page of Roberts' notes reflecting that the Compensation Committee had approved the backdating. But the SEC never alleged that the grant lacked formal approval just that Roberts signed off on misleading documents about when Matin began working at McAfee. The evidence suggests that this is exactly what he did. Because McAfee had reason to suspect that Roberts participated in wrongfully backdating the Promotion Grant, the Samenuk Grant, and the Matin Grant, McAfee's motion to strike the malicious prosecution claims should have been granted.