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Apple Execs Reportedly Faked Options Documents

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the hands-in-the-cookie-jar dept.

theodp writes "Federal prosecutors are reportedly looking closely at stock option administration documents that were apparently falsified by Apple execs to maximize the profitability of option grants. While Apple has said CEO Steve Jobs did not profit from the stock-option backdating, Jobs has reportedly hired his own attorney to deal with the SEC and Justice Department."

3 of 172 comments (clear)

  1. Re:yay, another company who's CEO's rob shareholde by baldass_newbie · · Score: 1, Troll

    Actually, this was the case with a lot of the 'corruption' cases that sprang up.
    Clinton's Justice Department was noticably lackadaisical about prosecuting or enforcing certain accounting standards (depends on what your definition of 'profit' is, I guess.)
    Anyway, when Bush comes into office, with a business background, 'fudging the numbers' is not cool. You either made a profit or you didn't, regardless of what shell offshore companies you bought.

    I have always found it curious that on Bush's watch all of these corrupt companies were brought to Justice (especially since Enron had Bush in their pocket, what with them hiring a Clinton official as spokesman) and yet Bush is tagged with fostering this corruption.
    I guess you can fool most of the people most of the time.

    I don't think Apple did anything other than do what they thought they could get away with (i.e. what everyone else was doing.) Besides, it's not like the rules for Exec Comp valuation don't change every other year (google 'Black Scholes Option Valuation' to get a sense.)

    --
    The opposite of progress is congress
  2. Re:yay, another company who's CEO's rob shareholde by dieth · · Score: 0, Troll

    and Apple who always got stolen from of all people. Get your facts straight, Apple stole most of there original stuff from Xerox.
  3. Re:Lawyering up. by GodInHell · · Score: 1, Troll
    One of the points to remember in all this, is that backdating shares may not be illegal. This creates a nest of issues that are hard to untangle for the layman (I'm not even going to try to figure out if the options were forged, whether proper notice was given, and what law applies to Apple's incorporation - since it varries state to state).

    What I will say, is that it is hardly unusual for an executive to take his pay in stock options. 85 Mil. in stock [granted, more than I will ever see] is saddly in the bracket of normal compensation for a company that is seeing such good times as apple is currently enjoying.

    Reasonable? No. Illegal? That is far less clear.

    As was point out to me previously though, I am coming at this from the assumption of innocence, which isn't necesarily the right position to take. I'd like to think about it some more...

    -GiH