The company is still dealing with financial restatements as well as criminal and securities investigations.

Neoforma has said that the financial restatement involves, among other things, the way it accounted for its original operating agreement with Novation and its corporate parents.

Symbol made its financial restatement last year, which reduced revenue during the period of the fraud by $234 million and net income by $325 million.

The company eventually issued a $127 million financial restatement - turning a cumulative $45 million profit from 1998 to 2000 into a $35 million loss.

What remains unclear is why the company now expects to make a larger-than-expected financial restatement.

But Mr. Misek's anxiety goes beyond the potential amount of the financial restatement.

More serious accounting problems may yet emerge, and the company has already been forced to consider outsized financial restatements as a result of the regulatory inquiry.

The network of private partnerships presided over by Mr. Fastow played a central role in the financial restatements that preceded Enron's collapse.

Nortel Networks, North America's largest maker of telecommunications equipment, has postponed for a second time the release of financial restatements that were expected this week.

Any financial restatements that result from the stock options inquiry, analysts said, would not be cash charges.