State of the Art: The Moto X From Google, iPhone’s Latest Challenger

The one truly huge, magnificent, radical idea of the iPhone, back when it was introduced in 2007, was to get rid of buttons. Make the whole phone a black rectangular touch screen.

By now, every company and its brother has done that. Everybody’s added voice recognition, GPS and navigation. Everybody’s sharpened up the screens to the point where you need a microscope to tell the difference.

So now what? How do you distinguish your phone from the more than 4,000 other touch-screen phones? (That’s not a joke. There have actually been 3,997 different Android phone models so far. And six iPhones and a motley assortment of Windows and touch-screen BlackBerry phones. Heaven help the landfills.)

With much fanfare, Google proudly presents its answer: the Moto X.

This phone ($200 with contract, 5.1 x 2.6 x 0.4 inches) is the first that Motorola has produced since Google bought it a year ago for $12.5 billion.

By looking at it, you’d never guess that this is the Android phone that Motorola hopes will change everything. Its curved back is plasticky, not classy metal (like the HTC One) or glass (like the iPhone 5). Its comfortably 4.7-inch screen looks great, but it isn’t as big or sharp as the Samsung Galaxy S4 and the HTC One. The phone is plenty fast, but its processor isn’t the latest and greatest.

But the Moto X does offer five features that no phone has offered before.

Feature 1: You can design your own color scheme. You’re offered a choice of 18 colors for the back panel, black or white for the front, and seven colors for the accents (the buttons and ring around the camera lens). The color choices are excellent; the odds of you and your frenemy showing up at a party with an identical Moto X phone are one in 252.

Later this year, you’ll even be able to order a back panel made of real wood — in bamboo, teak, ebony or rosewood. Motorola’s testing shows these beautiful panels to be just as tough as plastic (although more susceptible to termites, I’m guessing).

While you’re online, you can also order color-matched cases and earbuds, specify the wallpaper you want or request an engraved message for the back. For now, only AT&T offers the color choices. Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile will offer only black or white until later this year.

You get your customized phone within four days, courtesy of Feature 2: it’s assembled right here in these United States. The components are still made in Asia, but they’re put together in Texas — you can lose less sleep worrying about underpaid Chinese workers.

Feature 3 is the most useful: touchless mode. As with Siri on the iPhone, you can command the phone to dial a number, send a text, open an app, set your alarm, look up a fact on the Web, and so on.

But unlike Siri, you don’t hold down a button to speak. The phone is always listening, even when it’s in your car’s cup holder.

It works remarkably well, as long as you precede your command with the salutation, “O.K., Google Now.” Without ever taking your eyes off the road, you can say, “O.K., Google Now. Give me directions to the Empire State Building.” Or, “O.K., Google Now. Remind me at 8 p.m. to give the dog his pill.” Or, “O.K., Google Now. Make an appointment for Thursday at noon with Bob.”

This truly inspired idea is a leap forward in both safety and convenience. It owes its success to a special chip that does nothing but listen all day long. It does, however, come with fine print.

For example, you have to train the phone to recognize your voice. In a silent room, you have to say “O.K., Google Now” exactly the same way three times.

If you’ve password-protected your phone, this feature loses much of its power. It won’t execute most commands until you first pick it up and unlock it. So much for touchless.

And Android’s voice commands are still no match for Siri. The phone recognizes the basics, like “Wake me at 7:30 a.m,” “Open Angry Birds,” “What’s Google’s stock price?” and “Check the forecast for Memphis on Friday.”

DealBook Column: Newspapers Are Billionaires’ Latest Trophies

DealBook: S.E.C. Charges Are Latest Test for Steven Cohen

Steve Marcus/ReutersSteven A. Cohen, the owner of SAC Capital Advisors, is accused of failing to supervise former employees who face criminal charges.

10:18 p.m. | Updated

After a long-running investigation into insider trading at the hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors, an inquiry that has produced several guilty pleas and a record $616 million civil penalty, the government on Friday brought a case for the first time against the fund’s billionaire owner, Steven A. Cohen.

In a civil action, the Securities and Exchange Commission accused Mr. Cohen of failing to supervise former employees who face criminal charges. The case, filed as an administrative proceeding at the agency rather than a lawsuit in federal court, contends that he ignored “red flags” that should have led him to investigate suspicious trading activity at SAC and take steps to prevent illegal conduct. If the S.E.C. prevails in its action against Mr. Cohen, there are a range of possible penalties, including assessing additional fines, barring Mr. Cohen from managing money for clients, or banning him from the financial services industry for life.

Although the case stops short of accusing Mr. Cohen of fraud or insider trading, it represents the first government action brought directly against him after an inquiry that has persisted for nearly a decade.

And while the government has taken its first direct shot at Mr. Cohen, it is unlikely to be the last. Federal prosecutors and the F.B.I. are continuing to build a criminal case against SAC, according to people briefed on the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The authorities expect to announce charges as soon as this summer, the people said, noting that prosecutors might indict other traders at SAC or the fund itself, a move that would effectively destroy the company.

Though a legal deadline to file some insider trading charges is approaching, authorities are planning to navigate around that requirement by filing a broader criminal conspiracy case against SAC, these people said. As long as one of the trades cited in the case took place in the last five years, then the government has leeway to include older trades to highlight a continuing scheme.

Mr. Cohen is not out of the woods, either. In May, federal authorities issued subpoenas to Mr. Cohen and five of his senior executives to testify before a grand jury. Mr. Cohen declined to testify, exercising his constitutional right against self-incrimination, the people briefed on the matter said.

Even if a criminal case never materializes, the S.E.C.’s action on Friday is a blow to Mr. Cohen, who has built SAC, which is based in Stamford, Conn., into one of the world’s largest and most powerful hedge funds, with about 1,000 employees and $15 billion in assets at the start of the year. It has a nearly unparalleled investment record, delivering nearly 30 percent annual returns, on average, over two decades. SAC’s investors, however, have already withdrawn billions of dollars from the fund this year as the government’s investigation has intensified.

Keith Bedford/ReutersMathew Martoma, a former employee of SAC Capitol Advisors, has denied charges of insider trading and is set to go to trial Nov. 4.

Mr. Cohen, 57, thought he put his legal troubles behind him in March when SAC agreed to pay a $616 million civil penalty to the S.E.C. The case resolved insider trading actions connected to the suspected misconduct of two former employees, Mathew Martoma and Michael S. Steinberg, though they did not directly implicate Mr. Cohen.

The S.E.C. filed its latest case, which accused Mr. Cohen of failing to supervise the two employees, a day before the five-year legal deadline to bring a case related to trades that Mr. Martoma made in July 2008.

“Hedge fund managers are responsible for exercising appropriate supervision over their employees to ensure that their firms comply with the securities laws,” Andrew J. Ceresney, co-director of enforcement at the S.E.C., said in a statement.

On Friday, Jonathan Gasthalter, an SAC spokesman, said the S.E.C.’s action had no merit. “Steve Cohen acted appropriately at all times and will fight this charge vigorously,” he said. “The S.E.C. ignores SAC’s exceptional supervisory structure, its extensive compliance policies and procedures, and Steve Cohen’s strong support for SAC’s compliance program.”

The firm’s compliance policies and procedures have come under fire as many former employees have found themselves under government scrutiny. Including Mr. Martoma and Mr. Steinberg, nine former SAC employees have been tied to insider trading while at the firm; four have pleaded guilty to criminal charges. Mr. Cohen has not been accused of any criminal wrongdoing.

Mr. Martoma, 39, and Mr. Steinberg, 40, have each pleaded not guilty to criminal insider trading charges and face separate trials in November. Lawyers for each declined to comment on the S.E.C. action against Mr. Cohen. Representatives for the United States attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York and the F.B.I. also declined to comment.

Despite the substantial investor withdrawals, Mr. Cohen has vowed to continue managing funds for outside clients, to whom he charges some of the highest fees in the hedge fund industry. Yet Mr. Cohen could return investors’ money and still run a sizable business that managed his own personal fortune. His wealth accounts for more than half of the fund’s $15 billion in assets.

The S.E.C.’s case against Mr. Cohen intensified this spring, people briefed on the case said, soon after the agency struck the settlement with the fund. The agency sent him a so-called Wells notice in late May, the people said, warning that the agency’s investigators would soon recommend charges.

Mr. Cohen’s lawyers pushed back in recent weeks, outlining a potential defense to the charges. But the agency decided to proceed, one person said, holding a special meeting with the agency’s five commissioners to consider the charges. The meeting was separate from the agency’s typical weekly gathering to discuss enforcement cases, a measure that allowed the agency to keep a tight lid on the case.

The case is not a slam-dunk. The S.E.C. must show not only that Mr. Martoma and Mr. Steinberg violated the law and that they operated under Mr. Cohen’s supervision, but also that Mr. Cohen failed to “reasonably” supervise them.

It could benefit the agency that the case will appear on its home turf. Instead of a being heard by a judge in federal court, the proceeding will take place before an S.E.C. administrative law judge, who will determine what penalties, if any, should be assessed against Mr. Cohen. The S.E.C. says that the illicit trading earned SAC profits and avoided losses totaling more than $275 million.

Friday’s filing provides additional details about two sets of trades made by SAC in 2008. The first involved Mr. Cohen’s collaboration with Mr. Martoma in accumulating large positions in the pharmaceutical companies Elan and Wyeth, which at the time were jointly developing an Alzheimer’s drug. In November, federal prosecutors charged Mr. Martoma with obtaining secret information from a doctor overseeing the drug’s clinical trials. That doctor, Sidney Gilman, has agreed to testify against Mr. Martoma.

Inside SAC, a number of other drug stock analysts at the fund objected to the large positions, but Mr. Cohen told them that he was following Mr. Martoma’s advice because he was “closer to it than you,” according to the court filing. The S.E.C. said that in a later instant message, Mr. Cohen said that it seemed as if Mr. Martoma “has a lot of good relationships in this area.”

Mr. Cohen also knew of a second doctor who might possibly have had secret information about the clinical trials, the S.E.C. said. Rather than express concern about the fund possessing potentially confidential information, Mr. Cohen encouraged Mr. Martoma to talk further with the doctor, according to the court filing.

On July 21, 2008, after building sizable holdings in Elan and Wyeth, SAC began aggressively selling shares in the two companies. The day before, on a Sunday, Mr. Martoma had a 20-minute phone call with Mr. Cohen. It is unclear what was said during that conversation, but Mr. Cohen, in a deposition that he gave to the S.E.C. last year, said that Mr. Martoma told him he had lost conviction in the positions.

The second trade at issue in the case involves shares of Dell. The S.E.C. also faults Mr. Cohen for not ferreting out what they suspect was illegal trading in shares of Dell in August 2008 by Mr. Steinberg and another former SAC employee, Jon Horvath, who pleaded guilty to criminal charges last year.

Friday’s court filing cites an e-mail about Dell that an SAC trader forwarded to Mr. Cohen, who was working at his summer home in the Hamptons. The e-mail was from Mr. Horvath, who worked under Mr. Steinberg, saying that he had a “2nd hand read from someone at the company” and went on to provide detailed information about Dell’s financial performance.

“Please keep this to yourself as obviously not well known,” Mr. Horvath wrote.

The S.E.C. says that based on this e-mail, Mr. Cohen should have taken prompt action to determine whether the fund was engaged in insider trading. Instead, according to the agency, Mr. Cohen quickly sold his small Dell position just before the company announced earnings.

Three hours after the earnings release, Mr. Cohen e-mailed Mr. Steinberg: “Nice job on Dell.”

DealBook: S.E.C. Charges Are Latest Test for Steven Cohen

Steve Marcus/ReutersSteven A. Cohen, the owner of SAC Capital Advisors, is accused of failing to supervise former employees who face criminal charges.

10:18 p.m. | Updated

After a long-running investigation into insider trading at the hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors, an inquiry that has produced several guilty pleas and a record $616 million civil penalty, the government on Friday brought a case for the first time against the fund’s billionaire owner, Steven A. Cohen.

In a civil action, the Securities and Exchange Commission accused Mr. Cohen of failing to supervise former employees who face criminal charges. The case, filed as an administrative proceeding at the agency rather than a lawsuit in federal court, contends that he ignored “red flags” that should have led him to investigate suspicious trading activity at SAC and take steps to prevent illegal conduct. If the S.E.C. prevails in its action against Mr. Cohen, there are a range of possible penalties, including assessing additional fines, barring Mr. Cohen from managing money for clients, or banning him from the financial services industry for life.

Although the case stops short of accusing Mr. Cohen of fraud or insider trading, it represents the first government action brought directly against him after an inquiry that has persisted for nearly a decade.

And while the government has taken its first direct shot at Mr. Cohen, it is unlikely to be the last. Federal prosecutors and the F.B.I. are continuing to build a criminal case against SAC, according to people briefed on the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The authorities expect to announce charges as soon as this summer, the people said, noting that prosecutors might indict other traders at SAC or the fund itself, a move that would effectively destroy the company.

Though a legal deadline to file some insider trading charges is approaching, authorities are planning to navigate around that requirement by filing a broader criminal conspiracy case against SAC, these people said. As long as one of the trades cited in the case took place in the last five years, then the government has leeway to include older trades to highlight a continuing scheme.

Mr. Cohen is not out of the woods, either. In May, federal authorities issued subpoenas to Mr. Cohen and five of his senior executives to testify before a grand jury. Mr. Cohen declined to testify, exercising his constitutional right against self-incrimination, the people briefed on the matter said.

Even if a criminal case never materializes, the S.E.C.’s action on Friday is a blow to Mr. Cohen, who has built SAC, which is based in Stamford, Conn., into one of the world’s largest and most powerful hedge funds, with about 1,000 employees and $15 billion in assets at the start of the year. It has a nearly unparalleled investment record, delivering nearly 30 percent annual returns, on average, over two decades. SAC’s investors, however, have already withdrawn billions of dollars from the fund this year as the government’s investigation has intensified.

Keith Bedford/ReutersMathew Martoma, a former employee of SAC Capitol Advisors, has denied charges of insider trading and is set to go to trial Nov. 4.

Mr. Cohen, 57, thought he put his legal troubles behind him in March when SAC agreed to pay a $616 million civil penalty to the S.E.C. The case resolved insider trading actions connected to the suspected misconduct of two former employees, Mathew Martoma and Michael S. Steinberg, though they did not directly implicate Mr. Cohen.

The S.E.C. filed its latest case, which accused Mr. Cohen of failing to supervise the two employees, a day before the five-year legal deadline to bring a case related to trades that Mr. Martoma made in July 2008.

“Hedge fund managers are responsible for exercising appropriate supervision over their employees to ensure that their firms comply with the securities laws,” Andrew J. Ceresney, co-director of enforcement at the S.E.C., said in a statement.

On Friday, Jonathan Gasthalter, an SAC spokesman, said the S.E.C.’s action had no merit. “Steve Cohen acted appropriately at all times and will fight this charge vigorously,” he said. “The S.E.C. ignores SAC’s exceptional supervisory structure, its extensive compliance policies and procedures, and Steve Cohen’s strong support for SAC’s compliance program.”

The firm’s compliance policies and procedures have come under fire as many former employees have found themselves under government scrutiny. Including Mr. Martoma and Mr. Steinberg, nine former SAC employees have been tied to insider trading while at the firm; four have pleaded guilty to criminal charges. Mr. Cohen has not been accused of any criminal wrongdoing.

Mr. Martoma, 39, and Mr. Steinberg, 40, have each pleaded not guilty to criminal insider trading charges and face separate trials in November. Lawyers for each declined to comment on the S.E.C. action against Mr. Cohen. Representatives for the United States attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York and the F.B.I. also declined to comment.

Despite the substantial investor withdrawals, Mr. Cohen has vowed to continue managing funds for outside clients, to whom he charges some of the highest fees in the hedge fund industry. Yet Mr. Cohen could return investors’ money and still run a sizable business that managed his own personal fortune. His wealth accounts for more than half of the fund’s $15 billion in assets.

The S.E.C.’s case against Mr. Cohen intensified this spring, people briefed on the case said, soon after the agency struck the settlement with the fund. The agency sent him a so-called Wells notice in late May, the people said, warning that the agency’s investigators would soon recommend charges.

Mr. Cohen’s lawyers pushed back in recent weeks, outlining a potential defense to the charges. But the agency decided to proceed, one person said, holding a special meeting with the agency’s five commissioners to consider the charges. The meeting was separate from the agency’s typical weekly gathering to discuss enforcement cases, a measure that allowed the agency to keep a tight lid on the case.

The case is not a slam-dunk. The S.E.C. must show not only that Mr. Martoma and Mr. Steinberg violated the law and that they operated under Mr. Cohen’s supervision, but also that Mr. Cohen failed to “reasonably” supervise them.

It could benefit the agency that the case will appear on its home turf. Instead of a being heard by a judge in federal court, the proceeding will take place before an S.E.C. administrative law judge, who will determine what penalties, if any, should be assessed against Mr. Cohen. The S.E.C. says that the illicit trading earned SAC profits and avoided losses totaling more than $275 million.

Friday’s filing provides additional details about two sets of trades made by SAC in 2008. The first involved Mr. Cohen’s collaboration with Mr. Martoma in accumulating large positions in the pharmaceutical companies Elan and Wyeth, which at the time were jointly developing an Alzheimer’s drug. In November, federal prosecutors charged Mr. Martoma with obtaining secret information from a doctor overseeing the drug’s clinical trials. That doctor, Sidney Gilman, has agreed to testify against Mr. Martoma.

Inside SAC, a number of other drug stock analysts at the fund objected to the large positions, but Mr. Cohen told them that he was following Mr. Martoma’s advice because he was “closer to it than you,” according to the court filing. The S.E.C. said that in a later instant message, Mr. Cohen said that it seemed as if Mr. Martoma “has a lot of good relationships in this area.”

Mr. Cohen also knew of a second doctor who might possibly have had secret information about the clinical trials, the S.E.C. said. Rather than express concern about the fund possessing potentially confidential information, Mr. Cohen encouraged Mr. Martoma to talk further with the doctor, according to the court filing.

On July 21, 2008, after building sizable holdings in Elan and Wyeth, SAC began aggressively selling shares in the two companies. The day before, on a Sunday, Mr. Martoma had a 20-minute phone call with Mr. Cohen. It is unclear what was said during that conversation, but Mr. Cohen, in a deposition that he gave to the S.E.C. last year, said that Mr. Martoma told him he had lost conviction in the positions.

The second trade at issue in the case involves shares of Dell. The S.E.C. also faults Mr. Cohen for not ferreting out what they suspect was illegal trading in shares of Dell in August 2008 by Mr. Steinberg and another former SAC employee, Jon Horvath, who pleaded guilty to criminal charges last year.

Friday’s court filing cites an e-mail about Dell that an SAC trader forwarded to Mr. Cohen, who was working at his summer home in the Hamptons. The e-mail was from Mr. Horvath, who worked under Mr. Steinberg, saying that he had a “2nd hand read from someone at the company” and went on to provide detailed information about Dell’s financial performance.

“Please keep this to yourself as obviously not well known,” Mr. Horvath wrote.

The S.E.C. says that based on this e-mail, Mr. Cohen should have taken prompt action to determine whether the fund was engaged in insider trading. Instead, according to the agency, Mr. Cohen quickly sold his small Dell position just before the company announced earnings.

Three hours after the earnings release, Mr. Cohen e-mailed Mr. Steinberg: “Nice job on Dell.”

DealBook: Icahn’s Latest Gamble at Dell: Appraisal Rights

With the vote on a proposed $24.4 billion sale of Dell Inc. just over a week away, the deal’s primary opponent is trying a new tactic.

The activist investor Carl C. Icahn urged fellow Dell shareholders on Wednesday to start preparing appraisal rights for their shares. It’s a somewhat uncommon move that could yield a higher payout than the $13.65-a-share that Michael S. Dell and the investment firm Silver Lake are offering.

That is, if the gambit is successful.

The call for investors to exercise their appraisal rights is in some ways a surprising shift for Mr. Icahn, who has pushed shareholders to reject the takeover bid. He and another big investor, Southeastern Asset Management, have called for replacing Dell’s board with their own slate of directors, who would then push the company into buying back 1.1 billion shares at $14 each.

Despite winning the support of influential proxy advisers like Institutional Shareholder Services, advisers to the buyers and to a special committee of Dell’s board are still concerned that they may lose the July 18 vote on the deal. While Mr. Icahn may have lost some negotiating leverage with the I.S.S. report, those people believe that the activist may still succeed in stirring up enough opposition with the promise of his buyback proposal.

Wednesday’s announcement appears to signal that Mr. Icahn may be backing away from that plan.

Essentially, shareholders would need to vote against the leveraged buyout and then ask Delaware’s court of chancery to “appraise” the true value of their shares. (The New York Times’s Gretchen Morgenson previously wrote about appraisal rights in the Dell matter, and how some shareholders have been preparing to use them.)

Mr. Icahn cleverly points out that there is a 60-day period in which shareholders can demand appraisal rights, and then withdraw the request and accept the $13.65-a-share offer. “To add a new twist to an old saying, ‘you can have your cake and eat it too,’” he said in a statement.

Mr. Icahn is still urging shareholders to vote against the deal. But he is also betting that even if they win, Mr. Dell and Silver Lake will move to settle with dissident shareholders, paying them off to avoid years of potentially contentious court battles. In short, he’s looking for a price bump.

He notes that the buyers are on the hook for a $750 million breakup fee if they can’t close the deal under certain conditions, and questions whether the duo’s lenders will seek to back away if shareholders seek appraisal rights en masse.

There is obviously an element of chance here, since the Delaware court may award just the $13.65 a share, or even less. Mr. Icahn clearly states in his news release that “those who seek appraisal may get lucky.”

And if Mr. Dell’s bid fails, appraisal rights don’t come into play at all.

But for an investor who has thrown nearly every possible hurdle he can to halt the deal — or at least to force a higher payout — appraisal rights may pay off after all.

DealBook: Taking Dole Food Private Again Is Latest Challenge for 90-Year-Old Billionaire

Fred Prouser/ReutersDavid Murdock, the chief of Dole Food, with the actress Helen Mirren. Her 2010 film ‘The Tempest’ filmed on his private Hawaiian island.

David H. Murdock once took Dole Food private. Now the self-made billionaire is betting he can do it again.

On Tuesday, Mr. Murdock, the chairman and chief executive, offered to buy the 60 percent of Dole he did not already own for about $645 million, valuing the company at nearly $1.1 billion. It is the latest audacious move by the nonagenarian in a life full of them.

Mr. Murdock is credited with building Dole into a fruit behemoth, beginning with his 1985 deal to buy troubled Castle & Cooke, once one of Hawaii’s agricultural giants. It was the company that brought Hawaiian pineapples to the United States while also running one of the state’s biggest sugar cane operations.

Under his leadership, the company became an enormous real estate developer, with properties throughout the country. And its Dole arm, named for one of the state’s leading families, became one of the world’s biggest sellers of fresh fruits and vegetables.

Dole separated from its historical parent in 1996, and seven years later Mr. Murdock agreed to buy it for $2.3 billion. The company went public again in 2009, in an offering that valued Dole at $1.1 billion.

But Dole has sought to shake up its business in recent years, including by selling its packaged goods and Asian fresh produce arms to Itochu of Japan for $1.7 billion to focus on other parts of the world.

The business has proved volatile, however, subject to unexpected bouts of bad weather that have weighed on earnings. Last year, it lost $144.5 million, while sales declined 11 percent, to $4.2 billion.

Mr. Murdock may view Dole’s current slump as only one more obstacle for him to overcome. His life reads like a Horatio Alger story, from a modest childhood in which he dropped out of school at 14, to his period of homelessness after leaving the Army. A chance encounter with a loan company employee gave him $1,200 in loans to buy a local diner, which he sold within a year and a half for $1,900.

Mr. Murdock then turned to real estate development in the Southwest, building affordable housing, before turning to investments.

It also inspired a hard-charging entrepreneurial streak in him.

“I never had a boss in my whole life,” he told The New York Times Magazine in 2011. “I’ve totally destroyed anybody’s ability to tell me what to do.”

Mr. Murdock has parlayed that career into great wealth. Forbes estimated his fortune at about $2.4 billion as of March, ranking him No. 613 on its billionaires list.

Those riches have underpinned his other great preocuppation of late, health. He was instrumental in the construction of a 5.8-million-square-foot nutrition research facility dedicated to the proposition that a largely plant-based diet is the key to longevity.

His devotion to nutrition perhaps reflects the same tough-mindedness that he may bring to his efforts to take Dole private. From The Times Magazine article:

I experienced this during a visit in early February to his California ranch, where I joined him for lunch: a six-fruit smoothie; a mixed-leaf salad with toasted walnuts, fennel and blood orange; a soup with more than eight vegetables and beans; a sliver of grilled Dover sole on a bed of baby carrots, broccoli and brown rice.

“How did you like your soup?” he asked me after one of his household staff members removed it. I said it was just fine.

“Did you eat all your juice?” he added, referring to the broth. I said I had left perhaps an inch of it.

He shot me a stern look. “You got a little bit of it,” he said. “I get a lot — every bit I can.” He shrugged his shoulders. “That’s O.K. You’ll go before me.”

Latest Product From Tech Firms: An Immigration Bill

But most who watched the commercial, sponsored by a new group that calls itself Americans for a Conservative Direction, may be surprised to learn who bankrolled it: senior executives from Silicon Valley, like Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn, who run companies where the top employees donate mostly to Democrats.

The advertising blitz reflects the sophisticated lobbying campaign being waged by technology companies and their executives.

They have managed to secure much of what they want in the landmark immigration bill now pending in Congress, provisions that would allow them to fill thousands of vacant jobs with foreign engineers. At the same time, they have openly encouraged lawmakers to make it harder for consulting companies in India and elsewhere to provide foreign workers temporarily to this country.

Those deals were worked out through what Senate negotiators acknowledged was extraordinary access by American technology companies to staff members who drafted the bill. The companies often learned about detailed provisions even before all the members of the so-called Gang of Eight senators who worked out the package were informed.

“We are very pleased with the progress and happy with what’s in the bill,” said Peter J. Muller, a former House aide who now works as the director of government relations at Intel. “It addresses many of the issues we’ve been advocating for years.”

Now, along with other industry heavyweights, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the technology companies are trying to make sure the law gets passed — which explains the political-style television advertising campaign, sponsored by a group that has revealed no details about how much money it gets from its individual supporters.

The industry also hopes to get more from the deal by working to remove some regulatory restrictions in the proposal, including on hiring foreign workers and firing Americans.

Silicon Valley was once politically aloof before realizing in recent years that its future profits depended in part on battles here in Washington. Its effort to influence immigration legislation is one of its most sophisticated.

The technology industry “understands there’s probably not a tremendous amount of resistance to their part of the bill,” Mr. Rubio said in an interview last week, saying he welcomed the industry support. “But their future and getting the reform passed is tied to the overall bill.”

The bill has a good chance of winning passage in the Senate. The hardest sell will come in the House, where many conservative Republicans see the deal as too generous to immigrants who came to this nation illegally.

Rob Jesmer, a former top Republican Senate strategist who helps run the new Zuckerberg-backed nonprofit group that sponsored the Rubio ad, insisted that his organization’s push is based on the personal convictions of the executives who donated to the cause and who believe immigration laws need to be changed. Those convictions just happen to line up with what their corporations are lobbying for as well, he said.

“It will give a lot of people who are educated in this country who are already here a chance to remain in the United States,” Mr. Jesmer said, “and encourage entrepreneurs from all over the world to come to the United States and create jobs.”

The profound transition under way inside Silicon Valley companies is illustrated by their lobbying disclosure reports filed in Congress. Facebook’s lobbying budget swelled from $351,000 in 2010 to $2.45 million in the first three months of this year, while Google spent a record $18 million last year.

That boom in spending translates into hiring of top talent in the art of Washington deal-making. These companies have hired people like Joel D. Kaplan, a onetime deputy chief of staff in the Bush administration who now works for Facebook; Susan Molinari, a former House Republican from New York who is now a Google lobbyist; and outside lobbyists like Steven Elmendorf, a former chief of staff to Richard A. Gephardt, a former House majority leader, who works for Facebook.

The immigration fight, which has unified technology companies perhaps more than any other issue, has brought the lobbying effort to new heights. The industry sees it as a fix to a stubborn problem: job vacancies, particularly for engineers.

“We are not able to fill all the jobs that we are creating,” Brad Smith, Microsoft’s general counsel, told the Senate Judiciary Committee late last month.

Chief executives met with President Obama to discuss immigration. Venture capitalists testified in Congress. Their lobbyists roamed the Senate corridors to make sure their appeals were considered in the closed-door negotiations among the Gang of Eight, which included Mr. Rubio and Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, who have been particularly receptive.

In the many phone calls and hallway asides on Capitol Hill this year, those lobbyists realized that they had to give a little to get a lot of what they wanted. At the top of their wish list was an expansion of a temporary visa program called the H-1B, which allows companies to hire foreigners for jobs in the United States. There are a limited number of H-1Bs available each year, and competition for them is fierce.

Companies like Facebook and Intel use them largely to bring workers to their own offices. Consulting companies like Tata, based in India, use them to supply computer workers at American banks, oil companies and sometimes software firms.

Eric Lipton reported from Washington, and Somini Sengupta from San Francisco. Neha Thirani contributed reporting from Mumbai, India.

DealBook: The Impact of the Latest Insider Trading Convictions

Seth Wenig/Associated PressMathew Martoma, center, the latest alumnus of SAC Capital Advisors to be accused of breaking the law.

The convictions of Anthony Chiasson and Todd Newman in a lucrative insider trading case may well send a message to Mathew Martoma, the former SAC Capital portfolio manager, about the risks he runs if he fights similar charges filed against him.

The potential sentences of more than 10 years in prison that the two defendants face puts even more pressure on Mr. Martoma to cooperate in the government’s apparent quest to get his former boss, Steven A. Cohen, the founder of SAC. (Mr. Cohen has not been accused of wrongdoing, and his spokesman has said that Mr. Cohen has acted appropriately.)

The case against Mr. Chiasson and Mr. Newman was a classic insider trading prosecution built on the testimony of analysts at their hedge funds who had confessed to receiving confidential information about Dell and Nvidia and then passing it on. The government did not have recordings of the defendants discussing the companies, the type of evidence that proved so devastating in other recent cases.

The cooperators, Spyridon Adondakis and Jesse Tortora, testified that they gave the information to their bosses, Mr. Chiasson and Mr. Newman, who understood that it was confidential and reaped a total of more than $70 million in profits.

The defense strategy was simple: Accuse the cooperators of lying about their bosses by making deals to save their own skins. Mr. Adondakis was described by the defense as an “easy, practiced liar,” while Mr. Tortora was assailed as someone who “cannot and should not be trusted.”

The defendants called just two witnesses and rested their defense case after just a few minutes. Because the case rode on the credibility of the cooperators, Mr. Chiasson and Mr. Newman argued they were not aware that their underlings were passing on inside information.

Louis Lanzano/Associated PressTodd Newman was found guilty of fraud and conspiracy in an insider trading case.Louis Lanzano/Associated PressAnthony Chiasson was found guilty of fraud and conspiracy in an insider trading case.

In addition to the securities fraud charges, the jury convicted the two defendants of conspiracy based on the wider circle of tippers and recipients who passed around confidential information. Although the two men did not deal with each other directly, the government claimed that they were part of a larger agreement to trade on inside information.

The conspiracy conviction may prove especially devastating to Mr. Newman. By far, the largest trade was made by Mr. Chiasson’s firm in Dell right before a negative earnings announcement in August 2008 that netted $53 million in profits. Because the jury found they were members of the same conspiracy, Mr. Chiasson’s gains are attributable to Mr. Newman, even if he was unaware of the trading.

The federal sentencing guidelines base much of the recommended sentence on the amount of the defendants’ gains or losses avoided from the insider trading. Under the guidelines, Mr. Chiasson and Mr. Newman face a term of over 10 years in federal prison based on the benefits reaped from the transactions.

Another problem the defendants face is that Judge Richard J. Sullivan of the Federal District Court in Manhattan will decide their sentences. He has generally followed the recommended sentence in other cases, meting out substantial prison terms for insider trading.

For example, he sentenced Zvi Goffer to 10 years for his role in organizing a group of insider traders with ties to Galleon Group for trading that resulted in profits of as much as $20 million. At the sentencing hearing, Judge Sullivan noted that Mr. Goffer fought the charges by going to trial and only accepted responsibility after his conviction.

The judge told Mr. Goffer, “You decided to gamble with your future, and you lost.” That does not bode well for Mr. Chiasson and Mr. Newman, who have maintained their innocence and are unlikely to express contrition.

In 2010, Judge Sullivan imposed a six-year prison term on Joseph Contorinis, a former Jefferies Group fund manager, after his conviction for receiving tips in a case that also relied on the testimony of a cooperating witness. The profits were $7 million, about 10 percent of what Mr. Chiasson and Mr. Newman were accused of making on their trades.

It would not be a surprise for Judge Sullivan to hand down significant sentences near the 11 years Raj Rajaratnam received. His trading produced profits of approximately $63 million, similar to those realized by Mr. Chiasson and Mr. Newman, so the government is likely to argue that case may serve as a guidepost for determining their punishment.

The defendants can be expected to appeal their convictions. Two likely challenges will be to the sufficiency of the evidence of the conspiracy and to limitations the court placed on expert testimony about the trading at their hedge funds to show that the transactions were unlikely to have been based on inside information.

One ray of hope for them is the recent decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit allowing Rajat Gupta, convicted of tipping Mr. Rajaratnam, to remain free on bail while his case is on appeal.

Although the issues are different, Mr. Chiasson and Mr. Newman can point to that decision as a basis to allow them to avoid having to report to prison until their appeals are decided, which probably won’t happen until 2014.

Mr. Martoma was charged with trading on inside information about a clinical drug trial that the government claims produced profits and losses avoided for SAC of more than $270 million.

The charges depend almost entirely on the testimony of Dr. Sidney Gilman, a prominent neurologist who reached a nonprosecution agreement with prosecutors in exchange for his cooperation.

As in the case of Mr. Chiasson and Mr. Newman, the defense in Mr. Martoma’s case will assail Dr. Gilman’s credibility based on the favorable deal he received. But undermining his testimony may be more difficult because he did not trade on the information and is not a Wall Street insider who regularly dealt in financial information.

Prosecutors may be able to present Dr. Gilman as someone who got “played” by a sophisticated hedge fund trader. If a jury was willing to convict based on the testimony of witnesses like Mr. Adondakis and Mr. Tortora, there is a reasonably good chance Dr. Gilman’s testimony will be sufficiently believable to support a conviction of Mr. Martoma.

A lawyer for Mr. Martoma has said that he expects his client to be exonerated.

The recommended sentence he would face if convicted starts at about 15 years, and even a sympathetic judge is likely to be swayed by the outsize benefits produced by the trading in deciding the punishment.

Whether Mr. Martoma will try to make a deal remains to be seen, and it is unclear what information he might provide about Mr. Cohen that would entice prosecutors into a favorable plea bargain. The convictions of Mr. Chiasson and Mr. Newman are unlikely to bolster Mr. Martoma’s confidence that he can beat the charges he is facing.

Bucks Blog: Morningstar's Latest Ratings of College Saving Plans

Morningstar Inc. has updated its rankings of the country’s largest 529 college savings plans, giving its top rating to plans offered by four states: Alaska, Maryland, Nevada and Utah.

Morningstar, a provider of investment research, is best known for its rating of mutual funds. But it also tracks 529 plans, which are state-sponsored plans named for the tax code that created them. Money in the plans grows tax free, and  stays that way as long as it’s used for educational expenses when you withdraw it. Many states also give tax breaks for money saved in the plans. (Families aren’t restricted to investing in the plan in the state where they live.)

Morningstar rated 64 plans representing 95 percent of assets held in the plans. Factors that it said it used in the rankings included the plan’s strategy and investment process; the plan’s risk-adjusted performance; the skill of the plan’s manager; the practices of the plans administrator and parent firm; and the fees involved in managing the plans.

Over the last year, many plans have showed a trend toward better-quality investments and lower fees, said Laura Pavlenko Lutton, who oversees Morningstar’s 529 Ratings.

Twenty-seven of the plans were given medal rankings (gold, silver and bronze) and are “likely to outperform their peers, based on Morningstar’s analysis. But just four plans were given a “gold” rating, meaning they were “highly regarded” by Morningstar analysts. “Over all, these plans stand out as best of breed for their ability to help college savers meet their goals,” the company explained in a statement.

The gold star plans went to these plans:
• Alaska’s T. Rowe Price College Savings Plan, managed by T. Rowe Price;
• Maryland College Investment Plan, managed by T. Rowe Price;
• Nevada’s The Vanguard 529 Savings Plan, managed by Upromise Investments; and
• Utah Educational Savings Plan, managed by the agency of the same name.

Four more plans were rated silver, and 19 were rated bronze.

A “neutral” rating means the analysts don’t think the plans are likely to deliver “standout” returns, but also that they’re unlikely to significantly under-perform. Most plans — 33 of them — fell into this category.

And these four plans were rated negative because of poor-quality investments or high fees:

• Kansas’ Schwab 529 College Savings Plan, managed by American Century Investment Management;
• Minnesota’s College Savings Plan, managed by TIAA Tuition Financing;
• Rhode Island’s CollegeBoundfund (Advisor-sold), managed by AllianceBernstein; and
• Rhode Island’s CollegeBoundfund (Direct-sold), managed by AllianceBernstein.

More details on the plans and their rankings are available on Morningstar.com’s 529 plan Web site, but a subscription is required.

Are you surprised by your 529 plan’s Morningstar rating? What has been your experience with your 529 plan?

LeClairRyan Is Latest Law Firm to Expand in Los Angeles

LeClairRyan has brought aboard five intellectual property and litigation lawyers to its Los Angeles office, joining a number of law firms that have established or expanded practices in the area.

Joining as shareholders are James Potepan and Thomas O'Leary. Joining as partners are Courtney Curtis, James Hildebrand and Brian Vanderhoof. All were previously at Ropers Majeski Kohn Bentley.

In July, Cooley opened an office with four partners, and, earlier this month, Thompson & Knight launched an L.A. practice. Other firms that have added attorneys in Los Angeles include Pepper Hamilton; Winston & Strawn; and Foley & Mansfield. Last year, Dallas litigation firm McKool Smith debuted an L.A. office.

"It's generally a function of out-of-state firms having clients here," said Jill Levin, an attorney recruiter at Los Angeles-based Levin & Associates.

Some of the law firm expansion is due to the development of Silicon Beach, an area of Santa Monica that is sprouting high-tech startups in part because the office rental rates are cheaper than in Silicon Valley to the north. Google Inc., Hulu LLC and Demand Media Inc. have offices in the Santa Monica area.

A convergence of the technology and entertainment industries is driving the growth, according to law firm consultant Peter Zeughauser. As more consumers move away from personal computers to mobile devices, tech companies need content, he said.

"L.A. is to content as Wall Street is to money -- the center of the Universe," Zeughauser said.

The attorneys joining LeClairRyan focus on copyright, trademark, trade secrets, rights of publicity, licensing and unfair competition. Clients come from a range of industries that includes consumer products, publishing, entertainment, education and technology, according to the firm.

"With the addition of Jim, Tom and their team of highly experienced attorneys, we are able to provide our clients with even more exceptional intellectual property and litigation capabilities in the Los Angeles marketplace," LeClairRyan Chief Executive David Frienberg said in a news release.

Richmond, Va.-based LeClairRyan has about 50 attorneys, patent agents and technical specialists who handle intellectual property matters. The firm, with 21 offices, has about 340 lawyers.