Friday, 29 December 2006

Apple Executives Faked Stock-Option Documents

Apple has allegedly faked its stock options documents in order to boost their profits and the share values in the market. Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges, US federal investigators, have been investigating the discrepancies in documents regarding...

Apple has allegedly faked its stock options documents in order to boost their profits and the share values in the market. Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges, US federal investigators, have been investigating the discrepancies in documents regarding profit statistics of the company.

Apple’s CEO, Steve Jobs is said to have publicly apologized for his actions in the October statement and hired an external counsel.

"When there are falsified documents, the government views them as an intent to defraud, because people generally don't falsify documents unless they're trying to make things different from reality," said Keith Krakaur, a partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom in New York working on backdating cases.

Top executives of the company were involved in the scandal sources report. Nancy Heinen, former senior vice president and general counsel, and Fred Anderson, former chief financial officer were involved in the case related to accounting, recording and reporting stock-option grants.

Anderson and Heinen have resigned post the scandal making an apperance publicly. .

Shares of Apple stock were took a severe hit post the news. They stepped down by USD 3.55, or US4.36 percent, to USD 77.96 on the Nasdaq stock market following the report on the fake stock option documents.

Apple is providing all relevant information to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for its investigation, a company representative said, declining to comment further.

Apple has said Jobs did not profit from the stock option backdating, although he was aware that favorable grant dates had been assigned to certain executives. Due to the probe, the company has delayed filing its annual report with the SEC since it will probably have to restate earnings for prior periods to properly account for the options.