“Apple Inc. won dismissal of a shareholder lawsuit claiming company officers including Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs were overpaid with illegally backdated option awards,” Joel Rosenblatt reports for Bloomberg.
“U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel in San Jose, California, dismissed the case in an order [yesterday]. Apple, maker of the iPod and iPhone music-and-video players, said last year that 6,428 stock-option grants issued between 1997 and 2002 were backdated,” Rosenblatt reports.
The New York City Employees’ Retirement System, the lead plaintiff in the case, acknowledged that Apple’s stock price didn’t fall as a result of the backdating, which is the most common basis for shareholder claims [but] argued the awards caused Apple to dilute its stock by issuing more than 200 million shares that weren’t properly accounted for or disclosed,” Rosenblatt reports. “‘While the subsequent disclosure that the options were backdated might require a restatement, without a discernable drop in the stock price there is no basis upon which to establish an injury to shareholders,’ Fogel wrote in his opinion.”
Rosenblatt reports, “Apple, based in Cupertino, California, found no misconduct by Jobs, who recommended favorable dates on some option grants other than his own. The company recorded $84 million in charges to correct its accounting.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Linux Guy And Mac Prodigal Son” for the heads up.]
Nice. Should probably see a pop in the share price if the general market doesn’t drag everyone down with it.
Beware of the words:
“But everyone is doing it”
On another note, cool MDN has included a text box expander in the lower right corner.
I wonder how much the NYC Retirement System lost in in the law suit compared to how much they thought they lost from diluted stock value.
Pete — that’s actually a new Leopard feature.
Pete, I believe the expandable text box is a Leopard feature.
It is available on any web text box.
But I agree – how cool is that?!
…but Paul beat me to the punch!
MDN MW: Increase, ie. He must increase, and I must decrease.
1 lawsuit down….50,000,000 more to go
Pete, er, Paul, and merry…
I believe it is a Safari 3 feature, as it is on my Tiger rig….
The expandable text box is a Safari 3, not a Leopard, feature. It’s been available in the Safari 3 beta, even under Tiger…
@Paul
Actually it is a Safari 3 feature since it showed up when running Safari 3 Beta while in Tiger.
P.S. I would not like to face all the NY retirees with theirs and Apple’s legal bills!
Is there an echo in here? ……… echo… echo… echo…
Yeah, i have the expandable text box too and I’m sunning Tiger.
I mean, I’m running Tiger. He’s got enough sun for today.
Also, is it just me or does Safari 3 makes the buttons and edges on webpages (and everything in general) look much sharper and clearer? Anyone else see this?
Wooooooo hooooooo! Stevie gets away with murder AGAIN! Would love to huff them loafers.
I’ve had more backdated options in my 50+ years than any of you 12-year-olds ever will.
This is just outrageous. Steve Jobs has been such a bad influence on my shareholder value.
I have an expandable text box feature and I’m running Tiger.
I have an expandable text box feature and I’m running Tiger.
I have an expandable text box feature and I’m running Tiger.
I have an expandable text box feature and I’m running Tiger.
I have an expandable text box feature and I’m running Tiger.
I have an expandable text box feature and I’m running Tiger.
I have an expandable text box feature and I’m running Tiger.
Nope, no echo in here.
I agree with Chrissy One, just imagine AAPL if only Steve jobs were out of the picture
Now!…now…now
Batting for the Yankees….Yankees…Yankees
Joe…Joe…Joe
DiMaggio…o…o
My echo is working just fine.
I must be blind… I don’t see an expandable text box in the lower right corner
I knew they should have bought Be instead… Fuck you Steve Jobs for paying for my house!
hahahaha!
sanity!
Read the details. The judge dismissed the suit because they had no evidence of having been INJURED.
You don’t win just because someone did something bad. It had to actually cause you damage. And damage means monetary damage.
Good luck proving that SJ and Apple management has monetarily damaged its shareholders. Seriously, good luck with that. One of the great stock price gains in history and you’re trying to prove that you were harmed as owners of that stock.
We need to start having annual awards for the most ridiculous lawsuits against Apple. This would be up there with “the iphone is a monopoly because its so uniquely great.”
What’s sad is that this obvious result requires thousands of legal hours to grind through the due process.
And for those of you angry because SJ hasn’t apparently been punished for “doing something wrong”…. hey this is the law. A tort means you’ve been damanged. A criminal violation means you actually broke the law. The backdating wasn’t illegal, just improperly accounted for. A shareholder tort, if they’d been damaged…. but seriously.
I have an expandable text box feature and I’m running Windows XP! (and Safari 3 for Windows)
What’s an “expandable text box”????
I am running S3 on Leopard, but I don’t get what you are all talking about…
@Shado Control
Are you using Safari 3 – If so, have a peep at the text box, where you would type in your comments, at the bottom right corner of the text box is a grab handle – this allows you to resize the text box – just click on it, hold and drag.
Unfortunately, on my Aussie version of the page there is always a bleed’n ad box for “Keeping the oceans clean” and this ends up inside the text box, so I am forced to resize vertically only.
HELLO MDN !!!
Thanks Sky Lark.