Financial Times: Forged Documents related to Jobs' options
Sources have informed The Financial Times of London that the forged documents at the center of the ongoing SEC investigation relate to illegal activities surrounding options given to Steven Jobs. According to the FT story, Jobs "was handed 7.5m stock options in 2001 without the required authorization from the company's board of directors." and that "Records that purported to show a full board meeting had taken place to approve Mr Jobs' remuneration, as required by Apple's procedures, were later falsified."If this is in fact the case, it certainly makes sense that Jobs would seek his own external legal counsel both to more closely protect his personal interests as well as put some distance between himself and the company as a whole.
Update: The FT article makes no mention of wrong doing by Jobs himself, and as such this post has been updated.
[via Cult of Mac]
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Sources have informed The Financial Times of London that the forged documents at the center of the ongoing SEC investigation relate to...
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Robert, that's what I mean. He's distancing himself from the company because now his best interests and the company's best interests are now mutually exclusive. The company counsel is NOT hired to protect Steve Jobs, but instead is hired to protect the company.
"Options as a rule are a heinous and sneaky form of compensation. If companies want to give out bonuses, they should be in the form of cash, which is easily accounted for."
I couldn't agree with you more. I've been given more than my share of options. I hated every last one of them. Thankfully, I get them no more.
re: Jobs retaining his own counsel:
This has nothing to do with distancing himself from the company. In large government probes, corporations have found themselves on the receiving end of a great deal of pressure to waive their attorney-client confidentiality privilege. In the event that litigation commences, statements Jobs makes to corporate counsel may be introduced via counsel's testimony.
#9 - Some of your facts may be factual, but do not represent *the* facts:
Your choice nugget is indeed quoted, and the 7.5m stock options in question were canceled before the exercise date, meaning Jobs didn't benefit from them.
BUT:
Although Jobs later surrendered those options before they were exercised -- implying that he did not benefit from them -- he was later handed 10 million split-adjusted shares as a replacement.
In October, a financial columnist argued that while Jobs did not directly benefit from the initial grant, he did so on the ensuing exchange because the value of the 10 million shares were themselves based on favorably chosen "backdated" dates.
Reference: http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=2333
Therefore, he did benefit from a replacement of those options. This is shady boardroom behavior and goes against Apple's Corporate Governance and SEC rules. If true, the law was broken and there will be consequences, although not necessarily for Steve, unless he was involved in the process.
Options as a rule are a heinous and sneaky form of compensation. If companies want to give out bonuses, they should be in the form of cash, which is easily accounted for.
I'm not sure anyone really knows anything at this point. There are some who feel quite strongly and claim to know how this stuff works that Jobs will be fine while others feel just as strongly and also claim to know how this stuff works and thinks Jobs may be in deep doo-doo.
So with that said it's almost entertaining to think that since Apple has come full circle with Jobs coming back to the company and now may be ousted that what are the chances we see Scully at Apple again. ;)
Ease up guys...I'm joking about this but it might bring back the Newton. LOL!!!
Wow, you fanboys are cute.
Look, the guy got handed 7.5 million dollars in stock options, illegally. He was on the board of directors for that meeting that never happened. Do you honestly think that he had no idea of what was going on? At all?
Come on, people. Be realistic. You don't get $7.5mil handed to you without having any idea where it came from. Jobs was smart to hire his own lawyer, because the SEC is going to wonder why he profited from this, and Apple's in house counsel likely won't be able to help the man.
He's insulating himself from the company, and that's often signs of a "without my permission" defense. There is an impending fight between him and Apple coming.
Agreed. This is pretty sloppy reporting. Maybe Jobs will sick his personal lawyer on you guys for slander or somesuch.
The report just says someone, somewhere falsified the BoD meeting. Nancy Heinen and Fred Anderson, the company's former general counsel and chief financial officer, respectively, are likely where the fingers should point.
- Jasen.
Jobs hired an attorney because his quit right before this whole stock options fiasco broke. Do your friggin research!
December 28 2006 at 10:05 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply#8...who says just rich people want more money? I think if you take a poll of people on the street, nine out of ten people will want more money. The tenth, who doesn't, is probably crazy and thinks he's Napoleon.
December 28 2006 at 9:56 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyI don't know, I'm scared just in case. I suppose I'm a worrysome Apple whore.
December 28 2006 at 9:13 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyHot Apps on TUAW
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