Monster Worldwide Inc., New York, agreed to pay $47.5 million to settle a class-action lawsuit filed by the Middlesex County Retirement System that claimed the company was backdating stock option grants to its executives, according to a statement by Labaton Sucharow, a law firm representing the $733 million pension fund.
Monster Worldwide confirmed the proposed settlement, noting the company expects its cost to be about $25 million, net of insurance and a personal payment toward the settlement of $550,000 from Andrew McKelvey, Monster’s founder and former CEO.
The Middlesex County system, Billerica, Mass., lost about $15,000 on an investment of about $100,000 in Monster stock, Chris Keller, Labaton Sucharow partner, said in an interview.
The suit, filed in 2007, alleged Monster and Mr. McKelvey and other current or former company executives failed to abide by Monster’s stock-option granting practices and to properly account for the undisclosed compensation, rendering the company’s financial statements misleading, according to a statement from Middlesex.
The proposed settlement, reached Thursday, is subject to the approval of U.S District Court Judge Jed S. Rakoff in New York, who could finalize the settlement in the fall, Mr. Keller said.
