Dentsply Leaders Sued for Alleged Revenue Scheme, Insider Trades

A Dentsply Sirona Inc. investor sued more than a dozen of its senior leaders, claiming they used fraudulent revenue recognition practices to hit their incentive pay targets while three of them made insider stock sales at inflated prices.

The lawsuit, made public Tuesday, targets the dental supplier’s 13-member board, along with several current or former C-suite executives. It accuses them of illegally adding millions in “ghost revenue” to the books by using nonstandard accounting metrics—known as “channel stuffing"—to improperly categorize incentives and rebates given to the company’s distributors.

At the same time, Dentsply’s former chief commercial officer, its onetime head ...