The Commission stated: "During the period from at least 1997 through 2005, Mercury Interactive, Inc. ("Mercury" or the "company"), through its most senior officers and others, engaged in a fraudulent and deceptive scheme to provide executives and other employees undisclosed, secret compensation. Through the scheme, and without disclosure, Mercury's senior management, Chief Executive Officer Amnon Landan ("Landan") and at various times Chief Financial Officers Sharelene Abrams ("Abrams"), Douglas Smith ("Smith"), and General Counsel Susan Skaer ("Skaer"), backdated the date on which stock options were granted to executives and employees so that those options appeared to have been granted at times corresponding to low points of the closing price of the company's stock, resulting in artificially and fraudulently low exercise prices for those options."

The Court stated: "The Securities and Exchange Commission having filed a Complaint and Defendant Mercury Interactive, LLC ("Defendant"), having entered a general appearance; consented to the Court's jurisdiction over Defendant and the subject matter of this action; consented to entry of this Final Judgement without admitting or denying the allegations of the Complaint (except as to jurisdiction); waived findings of fact and conclusions of law; and waived any right to appeal from this Final Judgement."

The Commission stated that: "[It] settled civil fraud charges against Sharlene Abrams, a former Chief Financial Officer of Mercury Interactive, LLC, arising from an alleged scheme to backdate stock option grants and from other alleged misconduct . . . The Commission previously filed settled charges in this matter against Mercury and three former outside directors of Mercury."