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Jobs, Top Apple Names Get Summons in Backdating Case

by , 10:10 AM EDT, April 24th, 2008

The Boston Retirement Board is pursuing a stock option backdating lawsuit against Apple, and has issued summons to testify to CEO Steve Jobs as well as several other current and former board members from the company. The suit alleges that the company's accounting practices cost over US$105 million in extra value for backdated stock options issued to Mr. Jobs.

Along with Mr. Jobs, William Campbell, Millard Drexler, Arthur Levinson, Jerome York, Gareth Chang, Edgar Wollard, Fred Anderson and Nancy Heinen have all been summoned to testify in the Superior Court of California, County of Santa Clara.

Apple revealed in June 2006 that certain backdated stock option grants issued to company executives between 1997 and 2001 had been improperly backdated. Mr. Jobs received some of those grants, but later surrendered them to the company and was cleared of any wrong doing by an internally-commissioned independent investigation.

So far none of the suits brought against Apple for its backdating actions have gained any ground against the Mac and iPod maker. To date, the cases have either stalled because of a lack of evidence, or have been dismissed outright like the New York City Employees' Retirement System suit.

This new suit, however, claims to be different because it offers evidence obtained from an investigation into confidential records, according to FindLaw.com. Since the evidence found in those records may still be considered confidential by the court, the group may have to file an amendment or present their findings in a sealed version of the case.

According to the retirement group, "The documents Apple has produced provide critical details about Apple's backdating practices and confirm that all of Apple's directors were aware of and participated in the backdating scheme."

Apple is following its standard company policy regarding pending litigation and is not commenting on the case.

Observer Comments

Show: Subjects Only | Full Comments
Close Name:geoduck Posts: 1668 Joined: 30 Dec 2003
Subject:

If Jobs "later surrendered them to the company", doesn't that mean he did not cash them in, therefore it cost the company nothing, aside from a bit of paper processing time?

How could it cost the company $105mil of he didn't cash them in? It seems that real losses to Apple from this suit are far in excess of what this issue actually cost Apple.

View Name:Guest
Subject: Jobs participated in illegal backdating
Close Name:Intruder -   TMO Mac Specialist Posts: 2843 Joined: 07 Jul 2004
Subject: Re: Jobs participated in illegal backdating

Quote
Anonymous wrote:
Another corporate crook who should be frog-marched out of his office. Apple's cover up has been exposed.



Ummm, yeah. Except for the fact that he was cleared of any criminal wrong-doing. This is a civil suit, not criminal.

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