Apple Computer is probing share option awards it gave to
employees between 1997 and 2001, including an award to chief
executive officer Steve Jobs.
The proble is set to trigger an investigation by the US
Securities and Exchange Commission, after Apple alerted the US
regulator to its internal investigation.
Apple said it had “discovered irregularities” in the grants. The
company said the award to Jobs had been subsequently cancelled and
that he had not gained financially from it. It is not clear when
the award to Jobs was cancelled.
Jobs said, “We are proactively and transparently disclosing what
we have discovered to the SEC. We are focused on resolving these
issues as quickly as possible.”
Apple said it would not comment further on the irregularities
until an investigation had been completed by an outside independent
legal team, which it has hired.
In a separate development, CA announced that it might have to
restate its earnings from previous years because of the way it had
handled share option grants to employees.
CA said that prior to fiscal year 2002 it “did not communicate
stock option grants to individual employees in a timely
manner”.
There were delays of up to two years between when grants were
approved and when they were notified or given out.
A number of US technology companies have been under
investigation recently for the way they handle grants of share
options. After approving such awards, they had released the shares
at a later date, when the share price was lower, so the recipient
could buy exercise their options more cheaply.