At the same time, lawmakers created a senior Pentagon position for technology security after concluding military officials' role in controlling exports to countries like China had been "significantly and improperly reduced over the years."

In its complaint, filed in federal court in San Diego, the Securities and Exchange Commission said the executives had improperly reduced the size of loan loss reserves, improperly claimed revenue and tinkered with accounting in other ways to meet the market's expectations in the second and third quarters of 2000.

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit brought by a group of retirees from CNF and its spinoff company, Consolidated Freightways, who said their pensions had been improperly reduced.

In reviewing 4,900 claims, Mr. Supple said, State Farm concluded that 500 might have been improperly reduced and subsequently paid the claims with interest.

A federal district court found last month that home health agencies in nine states, including New Jersey, Connecticut, California and Texas, had improperly reduced or terminated home health benefits for thousands of Medicare patients without giving them any notice of the cutbacks or of their right to appeal.

Last month, officials acknowledged that the principal of Stuyvesant, one of the city's most coveted specialized high schools, had improperly reduced the size of the incoming class by about 100.

The ruling, issued on Friday and published yesterday in the journal Tax Notes, overturned a 1999 United States Tax Court decision that Compaq had improperly reduced its 1992 income tax bill through a series of huge, rapid-fire stock trades.

By the end of the scheme, WorldCom had improperly reduced its expenses by more than $3.8 billion, changing money-losing quarters into periods of profit.

In June 2008, Campaign Money Watch, a 527 independent political group, filed a federal complaint that the company had improperly reduced the amount the campaign owed it by $107,000.