The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) appears to have revealed its intentions to go after former Brocade CEO Greg Reyes. The commission earlier today announced a press conference in San Francisco via a covertly named Word file dubbed "brocademedia.doc".

"You can't draw any conclusion from that," SEC spokesman John Heine told Reuters.

Brocade's ex-chief has long been at the center of speculation that the SEC would dish out civil charges against him over the alleged improper booking of stock options expenses. Numerous companies have been fingered in a wide-ranging stock options probe. The government suspects that companies reworked the dates of options grants to give employees more lucrative packages.

The SEC will hold a press conference at 2 p.m. today in San Francisco and is expected to announce the first set of criminal and civil charges in the stock option probe against Reyes, making an example of the former executive.

Brocade, which has suffered from long-running accounting issues, has been investigating the options issue.

The storage switch maker has a contentious relationship with Reyes. It granted him a cushy exit package only to try and weasel out of the deal and any association with Reyes later on, claiming the executive wasn't doing his consultancy work as promised.

We'll have more this afternoon, following the SEC announcement. ®

Related stories

• Judge bounces ex-Brocade chief's appeal bid (10 January 2008)
• Brocade securities probe hits former CFO (20 August 2007)
• Brocade ex-CEO guilty of options fraud (7 August 2007)
• Brocade and Mercury rain cash on SEC to settle charges (31 May 2007)
• BEA options re-statement hits $400m mark (16 February 2007)
• SEC procrastinating on Brocade fine? (11 October 2006)
• Ex-Brocade pair plead not guilty (31 August 2006)
• Ex-Comverse chief turns fugitive (16 August 2006)
• Brocade chomps McData (8 August 2006)
• Brocade is just the beginning - warns SEC chief (21 July 2006)
• SEC hits former Brocade CEO first in operation 'Options Fiasco' (20 July 2006)
• Brocade results set to warm Wall Street (19 May 2006)
• Brocade copies HP and Veritas by buying NuView (7 March 2006)
• Brocade and ex-CEO could square off in court over failed Cisco buy (9 February 2006)
• Brocade ends 2005 with a wheeze (6 December 2005)
• US SEC shows Brocade its formal probe (10 June 2005)
• Brocade to restate four years of financials as DoJ and SEC look on (16 May 2005)
• Brocade blames March for Q2 shocker (2 May 2005)
• Former Brocade CEO sent flying in golden skies (22 February 2005)
• Brocade makes income and CEO disappear (25 January 2005)
• Brocade to fix two years of earnings after audit (7 January 2005)
• Brocade narrows loss, whacks workers (19 May 2004)