Options backdating is the practice of issuing options contracts on a later date than that which the options have listed. While options backdating is not, in and of itself, an illegal practice, intentional backdating that coincides with low underlying stock prices and accounting reports that claim the contracts to have been issued at those times as “at the money” – rather than “in the money” – contracts has resulted in the SEC’s public view that backdating could be considered fraudulent. Options backdating has been used to enhance or increase the value of options contracts while reaping the tax benefits of having issued “at the money” contracts.

The SEC’s opinions regarding backdating and fraud were primarily due to the various tax rules that apply when issuing “in the money” stock options vs. the much different – and more financially beneficial – tax rules that apply when issuing “at the money” stock options. Additionally, companies can use backdating to produce greater executive incomes without having to report higher expenses to their shareholders, which can lower company earnings and/or cause the company to fall short of earnings predictions and public expectations. Corporations, however, have defended the practice of stock option backdating with their legal right to issue options that are already in the money as they see fit, as well as the frequent occurrence in which a lengthy approval process is required.

Hessam Nowzari is the Director of the University of Southern California Advanced Periodontics program, since 1995, and is a Diplomate of the American Board of Periodontology.

Nowzari(Iranian) holds a PhD in Biology and Health Sciences. He holds many international positions. He does not take any corporate contributions for lectures and his annual USC Periodontal Symposium is one of very few that does not take any commercial sponsorship.  Nowzari is the founder of the Taipei Academy of Reconstructive Dentistry in Taiwan and one of only two American members of the Dnipropetrovsk State Academy of Medical Sciences in Ukraine. Nowzari has served as a scientific expert on an international panel charged with assessing and ranking research proposals for the Ministry of Education and Research, section of medical engineering, in Italy. He has been elected to the Italian Board of Experts for evaluating medical products for patient safety and health integrity. In 2oo2, he joined the National Institute of Transplantation (NIT) to study the relationship between periodontal disease and transplant complications. He is also an editor of one of the leading reference publications, Aesthetic Periodontal Therapy: Periodontology 2000. In 2009, Nowzari became a consultant for the US Army on the "objective interpretation of scientific data".^{[cite this quote]}