San Jose Mercury News keeps ratcheting up the heat on Apple and Jobs but
so far the board of directors(all hand picked by Jobs of course) continue to insist Jobs has done nothing wrong and should not be liable if any legal actions have to be taken.
Basically Apple was found to have participated in the backdating options bonanza and they created an internal investigation committee chaired by board member Al Gore(yes THAT Al Gore). There were 3 members of the board on the actual investigation committee, 2 of whom at one point had to recuse themselves because of conflicts of interest(one had a business of which Apple was a huge customer, the other was signing off on many of the questionable option grants), the 3rd, now the CEO of Google Eric Schmidt, was CEO at a previous company that is now being investigated for backdating during his time there as CEO.
The initial results of the Apple investigation said that Jobs may have at some time been aware of the grants, but was not in any way connected to the timing of them, backdating of them, in other words, he did nothing wrong.
Further investigation is revealing not only was Jobs fully aware of what was going on, he even was involved in recommending when to backdate them and why. Furthermore, a cursory investigation of Pixar, where Jobs is also the CEO, reveals highly suspicious options dating practices went on there too also involving Jobs and other key execs. And the Mercury News uncovered stock trades by Jobs just prior to the announcement of the Apple backdating scandal.
One investor group is already complaining that the Apple BOD is protecting Jobs because of the opinion that Jobs is simply too important to the financial well being of Apple and without him, Apple would suffer. The legitimacy of the investigation has been called into question including accusations(gasp) that the chairman of the investigative team, Al Gore, had no actual accountability for anything, he was put on the BOD as a fundraiser and to add "prestige" to the company, had no actual function, and was simply signing off on the investigation without any actual involvement.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/16389487.htm
I've posted before on this backdating stuff we keep being told it was overblown, or most of the bad stuff is already out there, but it seems to me Apple is very unlikely to be the only company that took this approach. They knew they did it, they knew who was involved, but they created an internal investigation team to clear the key execs they wanted clear, in an attempt to fool investors into thinking all was ok. If Jobs did what they're saying he did I think he should face criminal charges just as some other CEO's at companies already caught in this have.
I had an interesting conversation with an exec here yesterday who said technically as he understands it, even Al Gore could be facing legal charges because as a director of a public company he's legally liable for anything he signs off on. So if he signs off on an investigation that was actually a coverup, he can be held criminaly liable.
I think this case is going to be pretty interesting as it plays out. It appears Gore was named chairman simply to make the investigation seem more legit, he probably had no actual involvement at all.
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