Dell has been caught with its hand in the cookie jar, and those will be some very expensive cookies. IT Channel Planet reports the hardware giant will have to fork over $100 million in fines as a company, and another $11 million from CEO Michael Dell and others for their failure to make proper disclosures.

Dell Computer Inc. said it will pay $100 million to settle a civil dispute with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that it used accounting sleight-of-hand and withheld material information from investors to give the impression that it was meeting Wall Street earning targets and reducing its operating expenses over a four-year period.

The SEC said that Dell failed to disclose to investors that it had received substantial payments from Intel Corp. for exclusively using its processors and not those of rival chip maker Advanced Micro Devices Inc. from 2002 through 2006 and, in so doing, distorted its financial performance.

Read the full story at IT Channel Planet:
Dell Pays $100 Million to Settle Accounting, Material Disclosure Dispute with SEC