The Wall Street Journal reports (here) that Bristol-Myers Squibb will settle a long-running criminal investigation of its accounting related to channel stuffing by paying $300 million and entering into a deferred prosecution agreement with the Department of Justice.  On May 10, the company issued a press release stating that it had increased its litigation reserve by $110 million (see earlier post here), so if this settlement is reached it will probably require additional reserves  The settlement of the criminal case comes on top of a settlement with the SEC in August 2004 for accounting violations that included a $100 million civil penalty and a $50 shareholder fund for channel stuffing.  That’s a lot of money to pay for helping to make quarterly sales look a bit better. (ph)