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Jobs and Apple board fingered in backdating civil lawsuit

The US Securities and Exchange Commission may have washed its hands of the Apple stock option backdating affair, but Steve Jobs and company aren't quite clear of the dirt yet. Jobs, along with ex-financial chief Fred Anderson, ex-general counsel Nancy Heinen, and four members of Apple's board of directors have been fingered in a …

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Antidisestablishmentarianist
Jobs Halo

What the hell...

...are Vogel and Mahoney doing? Trying to take down the prophet leader of the company they own shares in? How do you spell idiots again? Oh yes: Idiots.

I hope they succeed and see their shares tank.

Anonymous Coward
Unhappy

Bastards

I've got shares in Apple (purely on the basis that they're the only tech company whose shares seem to be going in the right direction, the last month notwithstanding - some might argue that the last year has been a washout, but it made me money!). Now please can the bloody stock options be dropped. Steve and Co can have as many as they like, as far as I care, and pay tax on none of it (which would only be spent on killing people - that's what Bush likes to do), as long as Apple turns a healthy profit. The instant Apple tanks would be the moment to mince the Apple boards collective scrotums and feed them to, to, oh, I don't know. Any suggestions?

Anonymous Coward
Thumb Up

lollorz

Cl3arly APPLE r teh sux. Iphone sr crapp!

etc etc

Well, it's good to see that Apple certainly can do some wrong. I mean their monopolistic behaviour (using their dominance in the portable music arena to boost sales of their computers and other hardware and software- just like MS were doing but far more reprehensible as it's Apple :P)

Just waiting to see the counter arguments of "Well MS did it in xxxx and didn't get caught!", "Since when has Linus Torvalds had legal problems like this? Use Linux!", "the PS3 sucks, get an Xbox. Xbox haven't been screwing with shares" etc etc

Reg Varney

@Antidisestablishmentarianist

Maybe they (a) don't wont to see their glorious leaders feathering their nests at the shareholders expense and (b) see through the reality distortion field and are not blinded by the light emanating from the anus of the "prophet leader of the company", so that they know that the company can prosper with or without him.

(My god, "prophet leader of the company", indeed! Surely El Reg should have some sort of 'rolling eyes to heaven while loudly gagging' icon to attach to comments like that)

Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward

Plead ignorance

Whenever someone at or near the top of some big company gets caught with their hand in the till, they always claim that they were ignorant of the details of how they would end up with lots more cash. When I had a limited company, the Inland Revenue and similar organs were at pains to point out that, were I to fail to pay something or ensure various paperwork was completed, then I would be held responsible as the MD. Ignorance of the detail would be seen as negligence on my part as a Director - I would be fined anyway.

bothwell

@AC

"Ignorance of the detail would be seen as negligence on my part as a Director - I would be fined anyway."

Sure - and the bigger your company is, the better able you are to absorb those fines. I think a lot of big companies see malpractice fines as a part of normal business costs, rather than any sort of punishment for corporate misbehaviour.

Thomas

Sorry, what?

"falsified the company’s records to create the appearance of illegality"?

"Why are you falsifying those records?"

"I want to create the appearance of illegality"

I hope that's not a direct quote from one of their pleadings, part of being a decent lawyer is trying to avoid ambiguities as they're exactly the sort of thing that can destroy your case later on, either because the judge takes your words to mean something and the defendants disprove that something but you actually meant something else entirely or just on procedural grounds because you've failed to allege any meaningful wrongdoing.

Kenny Millar
Jobs Horns

The case will go like this...

Court: How do you plead?

Jobs & Co: Put it this way, your Honour, if you find us guilty, we'll move our operation (and all it's tax dollars) to Mexico.

Court: We find the defendents Not Guilty.

Oh, nearly forgot to say, Buy a Mac, they're much better than windows Vista.

Mine is the one with the detachable fake wig.

Ted Treen
Go

Principles....

...are nice to see. Whatever the outcome, it is good to see that if an individual thinks officialdom is wrong, biased, corrupt or just plain dumb (or all four in the UK), they will commence their own actions to seek redress.

Yes, I'm a Mac user & a Mac fan - but whatever the outcome of this, it's good to see the individual refusing to be steamrollered by the state.

Ron Eve
Black Helicopters

Who gives a toss..

FFS whatever your stance Jobbsie saved the company, Apple stock tsunamied up the charts, everyone, including these whinging sotckholders, made a fuck of a lot of money. But no. They want even more. I'm sure Jobbsie couldn't give a flying fuck either, as he's already rich as Croesus and certainly doesn't need the grief of the prospect of a lawsuit hanging over his head. Or needs to spend a fortune to the running-dog lawyers and their capitalist-pig masters

Just my 2 pence worth, no axe to grind, honest...

Helicopter to deal with all the stupid conspiracy theorists hereabouts

Tom

@bothwell & @Reg Varney

Re: "see malpractice fines as a part of normal business costs"

Of course they do. When you read the laws and realize that no matter what you do, you're fucked if you make a profit, the only rational response is to treat fines as a cost of doing business.

Re: "prophet leader of the company"

But he is. Apple's profitability depends on Job's prophetability. He left, they tanked. He came back, profits went up. If he leaves sell. If he dies, sell even faster. These kinds of money makers only last as long as the charismatic rainmaker commands the attention of the masses.

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