Back in February, we took a quick look at the scorecard in the options backdating litigation, tallying up the settlements and dismissals, among other things.

In our earlier review, of the 36 options backdating cases that have been filed as securities class actions, 7 had settled and 3 had been dismissed.

Run the clock for a few months, and 9 of those cases have now been dismissed and 9 have now settled.

The nine settlements total $255.58 million, for an average of $28.4 million.

As noted earlier, these cases have settled much more quickly on average, than other cases. The nine cases have settled in an average of just 440 days. Removing the outlier, Mercury Interactive, which was filed earlier and added the options backdating allegations in a later amended complaint, drops the average time from filing of initial complaint to tentative settlement for the remaining 8 cases to 397 days.

And the ratio of settlements to dismissals is somewhat out of line with historical averages as well. Most studies (and a quick check of our database) indicate that the percentage of new securities class actions that are dismissed is between 33-40 percent.

With this group of cases, we can look at the data two ways. Dismissals as a percentage of total cases or dismissals as a percentage of cases that have reached a final, or quasi-final resolution.

Under the former analysis, exactly 25% of these cases have been dismissed. That number is artificially low, as not all of the cases have yet had a ruling on the motion to dismiss.

Under the latter method, 50% of these cases have been dismissed. This number is artificially high, as a number of these cases have already survived a motion to dismiss.

In any event, things remain interesting in the sometimes long-forgotten world of options backdating.