Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
The backdating of options isn't illegal but not disclosing and accounting for them properly to shareholders and regulators certainly is. In the case of Apple CEO Steve Jobs, 7.5 million backdated options he received in 2001 have threatened to bring him down but an examination of the matter by the San Jose Mercury News predicts that he will probably be exonerated of blame.
At the heart of the matter is the issue of
falsified minutes of a board meeting that never took place. However,
apparently there is no evidence to suggest that either Jobs or the
Apple Board, which included some of the biggest names in IT, including
Larry Ellison CEO of Oracle, knew of the falsified minutes or
accounting improprieties.
There is also, as the Mercury News points out, the fact that the
granting of Job's backdated options was openly approved by the Apple
Board and there is no evidence to suggest that either Jobs or the Board tried to hide anything.
The fact is, however, falsified minutes of a Board meeting were drawn
up and signed by Apple's general counsel and that there was some wrong
doing.
It would seem that the main issue then is who to blame for the
falsified minutes of a meeting that never took place. According to the
Mercury News Apple is pointing the finger at former General Counsel
Nancy Heinen and former CFO Fred Anderson.
However, the real issue is the importance of Steve Jobs to Apple.
Regulators usually go after corporate bosses because they illegally try
to line their pockets to the detriment of shareholders. To suggest that
Jobs has done anything to the detriment of shareholders at Apple would
be laughable.
To bring a criminal prosecution against Jobs, on the other hand, would
have widespread repercussions for the well-being of the company that
largely owes its success to his vision. That would be appear to be
contrary to the mandate of regulators which is to protect the interests
of shareholders.
David Bass
| For the fourth year in a row, IDC has placed content security provider Websense (NASDAQ: WBSN) at the top of the IDC Worldwide Web Security 2011 –…
How to Make Business Discovery Work for Your Business
Business Discovery takes its cues from consumer apps. Like Google, it encourages us- ers to hunt for and explore data without worrying about or even noticing the underly- ing technology. Their entire experience is working within an intuitive interface to get real-time, self-service results with only minimal training. ...more
Try an easy-to-use set of web-enabled
tools for business-class productivity services. Office 365 provides
anywhere-access to email, important documents, contacts, and calendars
on almost any device.
