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Posted on 01/23/2007 8:34:50 AM PST by jimbo123
Flanked by lawyers, Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs came to the San Francisco federal building last week to be questioned by staffers from the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission about stock options that were backdated at the company, according to people familiar with the case.
-snip-
At issue in Apple's case is the granting of 7.5 million options to Jobs in 2001 that was backdated by two months. Company records were falsified to create the impression the options were approved at a board meeting that never occurred, Apple has confirmed.
-snip-
An Apple attorney, Wendy Howell, whom the company dismissed in December, created the false documents at the instruction of Apple management, according to a person familiar with the matter. Her lawyer, Thomas Carlucci, could not be reached for comment.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Are they going to have a commercial where the old PC guy comes and gets the young Mac guy out of jail?
Did he hire Sandy Bergler's lawyer?
Looks like Jobs is going to need some i-Soap-on-a-Rope in the near future...
LOL.
Apple has said that its board initially approved the grant on Aug. 29 of that year. But negotiations with Jobs over how the options would vest continued until the grant was finally authorized by the board on Dec. 18, a person familiar with the matter said. After that approval, Apple backdated the grant to Oct. 19.
OK, so there's a delay and they wanted to fix it. There's no reason to go back and falsify documents -- couldn't they simply adjust the grant, in an above-board manner?
It tells me that there's a LOT more to this story.
iLOL.
LOL!
The Board approved the grant on August 29th when Apple stock had closed at $17.83 per share... but somebody dropped the ball or the vesting discussions went too long. In any case the grant was finalized on October 19th... but that had taken everything into a new fiscal year... and the stock closed at $18.30.
That delay from the date that the board had actually approved the grant had already cost Jobs $3,525,000 in potential value of the stock that he could eventually purchase. Apple company policy and GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Practices) did not allow a Stock Purchase Option grant vote in one accounting period to be finallized in another accounting period.
There was no regular Board of Director's meeting scheduled until December 18th. Since the Board had already voted on the grant, someone, probably either the CFO or the CLC, decided that if they put together some minutes for a "special" board meeting on 10/19/2001, that when the full Board accepted and approved those minutes at the next meeting it would be official. That person probably figured that this was just meeting the board's already stated intention and provided a means to do it.
The Board did not accept the falsified minutes. Instead, they elected to do it properly: they re-voted and re-approved the grant.
However, on December 18th, the day of the new vote, the stock closed at $21.03, which, had they re-done all the paperwork for THAT date, would have further devalued the stock purchase options by an additional $2.73 per share, a total of $20,475,000 LESS than the October 19th value, and a whopping $24 million LESS than the originally approved date of August 29, 2001. So the Board approved the October 19th date, effectively backdating it to the lowest stock value available to them, the October 19th closing when the paperwork was finalized, although 47¢ per share higher than their originally intended strike price from August 29th.
I think the Feds believe that anyone who believes Jobs was not directly behind every single thing that happened in this incident is living in fairy-tale land. That happens to be what I think, too. And, if true, he's going to the Big House for a while.
As CEO, Jobs is beholden to the Board of Directors.
If he directed fake minutes to be created about a non-existent Board meeting on compensation, he committed a crime.
If he didn't order the fake minutes to be created, he still participated in a coverup by not firing the culprits immediately and reporting their actions to the board, shareholders and the SEC.
His days as CEO are numbered. And he's facing jail time if he doesn't come clean about why he didn't report the fake minutes and non-existent board meeting years ago.
I can see it now…iPods & iMacs will be assembled here in the U.S.A. by prison camp labor.
It's hard for me to believe that a guy worth 5 billion would be willing to risk jail time, his company, his reputation, etc. over 24 million.
That's only 0.005% of his net worth.
It's like a guy making 200K a year willing to risk his job by stealing a couple of notepads and a few pens from the company supply cabinet.
LOL!
Where did I hear that AL GORE also profited from the options scam? Start digging, fellow Freepers!
He'll still be CEO even if he goes to jail.
That's easy.
Who else, but Dan Rather?
You are making claims about actions you cannot know about. Apple instigated this investigation themselves, found the apparent minutes of a non-existent Board Meeting... which were not ratified or accepted by the next Board meeting... which is obvious by that meeting's vote to re-authorize the Stock Options... and reported all of this to the authorities. They also fired the attorney who was responsible for making sure they crossed their 'T's' and dotted their 'I's' in properly handling stock options. The Chief Financial Officer and the Chief Legal Counsel have both resigned.
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