“A group of former and current Apple Inc. executives has tentatively agreed to pay $14 million to settle investor lawsuits over irregularities in some Apple stock options grants between 1997 and 2002.,” Ben Charny reports for The Wall Street Journal.
“The sum includes about $7.3 million in attorneys’ fees, according to terms of the proposed settlement outlined in court papers filed this week. As part of the settlement, Apple also promised to enact certain corporate governance reforms,” Charny reports.
“Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs, Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer and Chief Operating Officer Timothy Cook are among the current Apple employees still named as plaintiffs in the case,” Charny reports. “Former Apple CFO Fred Anderson and General Counsel Nancy Heinen are also named.”
Charny reports, “An Oct. 31 hearing has been scheduled to finalize the settlement.”
More in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Jen” for the heads up.]
Half and half. Half for the leeches and half for the investors!
As should be expected in any of these lawsuits, the Plaintiffs attorneys were paid over half of the settlement.
These suits have long since stopped being about Plaintiffs rights, and are totally about enriching Plaintiffs attorneys.
If ever there was a case for legalizing prostitution, this should be it. The highest paid whores in the country carry American Bar Association membership cards.
Gregg,
That’s not fair at all. Whores deliver value for their pay.
-jcr
Ugh..very very disappointed, rewarding leeches will only encourage more of same.
Oh well.
Not only that, they have a totally different idea of what giving head means.
Let’s see…
The investors could never prove that the stock lost value because of the options since the value significantly *increased* during that period. However, the lawyers involved pushed the lawsuits forward anyway.
The lawyers get almost half. Many states cap lawyer costs at no more than 40%. Clearly California does not have that cap.
Does *every* stockholder of record during that period get a fraction of that $7.7 million (after legal fees)? If so the stockholders will get less than a penny a share. (Current stock listing is about 885 million shares and if I remember correctly Apple has not had a split since before 2002.)
Let’s see. Assuming 50 lawyers (probably less than that many, but lets think big) means each one gets (on average) $146,000 — double that if there were only 25 lawyers bringing the lawsuit. The average small stockholder with 100 or so shares in their money fund gets less than a dollar.
Apple has to pay their own lawyers for this foolishness — probably a couple million dollars or more. So the actual, total cost to Apple is probably $16 million or more.
Bottom line… legal stupidity all the way around for everyone but the lawyers themselves.
I only hope that Apple gets the court to rule that this is the *LAST* set of lawsuits over this. Period!
The shorts and the lawyers are the winners. Apple and the stockholders lost in this deal.
This crap is used to crush Apple’s stock growth. I last read that Steve Jobs was cleared and now? I get very tired of this stock manipulation by the shorts.
Could it be that this ends up lifting the lid/weight from AAPL?
I guess, we’ll find out tomorrow…
I really hope Apple has the money and motivation to settle these kind of things out of court. Having a convicted criminal as CEO would be embarrassing. Unconvicted is OK.
” Having a convicted criminal as CEO would be embarrassing.”
This is not a criminal case, it’s a civil suit. Steve Jobs was exonerated.
-jcr
“The highest paid whores in the country carry American Bar Association membership cards.”
nearly half of $14 million is better than nothing, i prefer this outcome to the crooked executives keeping all of the stolen loot.
ps….get into some serious jail time trouble and these “highest paid whores” will start looking much better.
Amazing. No witty commentary from MDN on this one. Usually, we see the childish insults and diversionary tactics to discredit anyone or anything negative about Apple. But maybe this is too hard even for MDN to spin.
@EvilRonin
You’re an idiot!
If MDN were so adamant about publishing only the positive news about Apple, why would they post this? Hmmm…
Some advice: it’s better to be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt
What’s the big deal. For the last few decades the US has elected men who could easily have been convicted of multiple crimes had they not been in office.
But hey, character doesn’t matter.
Lawyers are sucking the country dry. This is a disgrace they get half the money. I wish I went to law school instead of being a tech head.
What do you call 10,000 dead lawyers on the bottom of the ocean? A good start..
Ah, El Guapo copying the MDN tactic. Not very original.
“nearly half of $14 million is better than nothing, i prefer this outcome to the crooked executives keeping all of the stolen loot.”
Absolutely correct. Class actions exist to right wrongs where most individuals would not have had the resources to do it themselves.
They serve a valid purpose in society, which is to stop the likes of the Apple directors doing bad things knowing that the harm to any one individual will be small enough that most people won’t pursue them.
They also make the legal process more efficient not less. Imagine a company having to defend millions of individual suits.