Apple hit with another backdating lawsuit
Apple faces a new lawsuit filed by shareholders angry over its stock option backdating practices.
Several shareholder suits have already been filed, but the latest one comes from the Boston Retirement Board, according to Andrews Publications over at Findlaw. This group claims to have "confidential information" regarding Apple's stock option backdating obtained through an inquiry via the Santa Clara County Superior Court, according to the article. However, it says it can't publish that information until a judge rules on how to treat the sensitive documents.
Apple acknowledged in late 2006 after an internal investigation that certain stock option grants, including one to CEO Steve Jobs, were improperly backdated to use a more favorable price when setting the options in order to make them more valuable. The company has maintained that while Jobs was aware that the options were backdated, he was not aware of the accounting implications of the practice. Backdating stock options is fine as long as you disclose the practice at the time, which Apple and dozens of other companies--including CNET Networks, publisher of News.com--in the early part of this decade did not do.
The suit, filed last week, charges that executives and directors harmed shareholders by failing to detect and prevent the backdating. A similar suit by the New York City Employees Retirement System was thrown out in November, but others are pending.
Tom Krazit, a staff writer for CNET News, focuses on all things Apple. He has covered traditional PC companies such as Dell and Hewlett-Packard, chip companies such as Intel and Advanced Micro Devices, and mobile computers ranging from Research In Motion's to Palm's. E-mail Tom.
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Steve Jobs, you made your billions by cheating people. Time for you to go to jail. Cheater!
up please?
probably more backdating activities. However, no one, repeat
NO ONE, did more to harm the long term technology efforts in
this country than Bill Gates. From double crossing IBM,
Wordperfect, and Lotus, pretending to be interested in small
companies products and then stealing their ideas, making PC
vendors pay for Windows on every machine sold whether
wanted or desired by the customer, essentially running
Netscape out of business by tying the browser to the operating
system, and on and on with abuse of its monopoly.
Microsoft has few good ideas today with Sharepoint being one
of the better ones. The software is bloated, inefficient but
certainly a little more secure than five years ago.
Yes, Bill Gates is now trying to buy back is soul by giving "his"
money to third world countries and libraries but it would have
been much better spent if he had not confiscated the money in
the first place.