Gemstar-Ex Yuen Must Pay $22 Million

The Securities and Exchange Commission has ordered former Gemstar-TV Guide Chairman and CEO Henry Yuen to fork over $22 million for inflating Gemstar's ad revenues.

Yuen will also be barred permanently from heading another company.

A California court in December upheld the SEC's charges of securities fraud and misrepresentations (lying), as well as omissions regarding Gemstar revenues.

The court has ordered Yuen to pay (it uses the muscular verb, "disgorge") $22,327,231, which includes penalties and interest. It concluded that Yuen had ill-gottenly gained $10,577,692 from fraudulent conduct including a $3 million bonus and over 7$ million in profits from trading in the inflated stock.

The 22 was essentially giving back those gains and paying a civil penalty of the same amount on top of that.

The SEC had charged that between June 1999 through September 2002, Gemstar had overstated revenues by at least $248 million and that Yuen knew, but did not disclose, that the company was overstating its advertising and program guide licensing revenues.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.