Apple CEO Steve Jobs told former Chief Financial Officer Fred Anderson to backdate stock options, according to a statement issued Tuesday by Anderson's attorney. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission reached a settlement with Anderson in the stock-options case and also charged former Apple general counsel Nancy Heinen with fraudulently backdating options. An internal Apple audit found that Jobs was aware of the backdating, but that he did not financially gain from it and did nothing wrong.
According to Anderson, he was told by Jobs in late January 2001 that Jobs had an agreement with the board of directors to grant stock options on January 2. Anderson "cautioned" Jobs that the grant for executives would have to be priced based on the date of the board agreement "or there could be an accounting charge," and also told Jobs the board would have to confirm it had given prior approval for the grant dates "in a legally satisfactory method." Jobs assured him that the board had given approval and Anderson "relied on these statements by Mr. Jobs and from them concluded the grant was being properly handled.” According to the SEC case filed today in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, both Heinen and Anderson personally received millions of dollars in unreported compensation through the backdating.
Link: Forum Discussion (Thanks Eros)
News source: PC World
According to Anderson, he was told by Jobs in late January 2001 that Jobs had an agreement with the board of directors to grant stock options on January 2. Anderson "cautioned" Jobs that the grant for executives would have to be priced based on the date of the board agreement "or there could be an accounting charge," and also told Jobs the board would have to confirm it had given prior approval for the grant dates "in a legally satisfactory method." Jobs assured him that the board had given approval and Anderson "relied on these statements by Mr. Jobs and from them concluded the grant was being properly handled.” According to the SEC case filed today in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, both Heinen and Anderson personally received millions of dollars in unreported compensation through the backdating.
Link: Forum Discussion (Thanks Eros) News source: PC World
3.5m is nothing compared to his total worth.
I mean, I can understand him raping his userbase for ungodly amounts of cash for his products. I can understand him keeping his music store incompatable with other standards. I can even understand him keeping the much touted iphone locked but to do something like this??? I can't belie......wait ammminit!
see him getting screwed. He is just the same as Bill G, but at least he is giving some of his money away.
But seriously - if this is really true - it is a shame, and he deserves to go to jail.
There has been no ruling against Jobs. In fact, Jobs has ridden this thing out quite well so far. At this point, he's still in the clear. This can change, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.
All we have is an ex-CFO trying to (surprise, surprise!
Besides the S.E.C. presumably heard everything the former CFO says here many months ago, and its actions speak more loudly than Fred's words. They are making him pay $3.65 million restitution and fines, and declining to pursue a case against anyone else at Apple but Nancy Heinen.
So Fred probably did *something* ill-advised, at some point, though from that brilliantly written statement you would never guess it.
BUT . . . there is another possibility: Fred was used to get the goods on Steve - a classic prosecutor move. In which case, Steve might have a bigger problem, regardless of what the SEC had said earlier about letting Steve off the hook.
It'll be interesting, but I still think Steve will remain in the clear. We'll see . . .
Last edited by LTD on 25 Apr 2007 - 00:50
So if the CFO is right then all board members have lied so they go to jail not stevie.
I know this logic is full of holes. But I am no lawyer.
"i knew it was wrong, i did it anyways, but its the other guys fault"
I dislike Jobs myself, but being irritating is definitely no reason to go to jail. If Jobs did no wrongdoing, he should not be punished.
your comment is irritating so by your logic, you should go to jail...
I dunno... it seems as good a reason as any. I also think they should lock up fat people and then only feed them a regular diet until they lose weight - that way prison could become like a glorified health farm. Yup. Unfortunately I'm not in charge of the prison service / police.
Get a life especially MountainSnake, probably because windows users think they are always right and their OS is the best thing since sliced bread and no other OS could possibly be better than the all mighty Vista, and so on, and so on....
Anyway, in this case, Steve just can't get his story straight. When this first popped up he said he didn't know anything about it and was sorry it happened "on his watch". But an Apple investigation turns up that Steve actually knew all along. This is what's known as "lying" and yet another reason why Apple's business practices are shamefully unprofessional.
http://www.neowin.net/index.php?act=view&id=38912
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