So that fraudulent “citizen journalism” report claiming Apple CEO Steve Jobs had been rushed to the hospital with severe chest pains and shortness of breath? The one that allegedly shaved about $4.8 billion off Apple’s market value after Silicon Alley Insider picked it up and published without verifying it? Securities and Exchange Commission investigators have tracked down its author and it’s not the short seller many had expected. It’s an 18-year-old with no clear motive, according to Bloomberg (ironically, the source of the Jobs obituary accidentally posted to news wires in late August).
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The wheels of justice grinding away at Apple’s option-backdating scandal for the past few years have worn another career down to gritty dust. The Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday settled the last civil case against a former Apple executive accused of stock-option fraud.
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$36 million. That’s what Yahoo spent in the first half of 2008 for outside counsel on Microsoft’s unsolicited takeover offer and the debacle that followed. “We incurred incremental costs of $36 million primarily for outside advisers related to Microsoft’s proposals to acquire all or a part of the Company, other strategic alternatives, the recently resolved proxy contest, and related litigation defense costs,” Yahoo disclosed in a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
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Yahoo’s board has–surprise!–advised shareholders to reject the slate of dissident directors put forward by billionaire investor-agitator Carl Icahn.
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Good thing Google seems to be backing away from its informal motto, “Don’t Be Evil.” Otherwise, news that Google board member and former Pixar CFO Ann Mather is facing civil action from the Securities and Exchange Commission for her alleged role in a stock-options backdating scandal at the animation studio would be, you know, totally [...]
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Mounting shareholder discontent over Yahoo’s response to Microsoft’s $44.6 billion takeover bid has inspired a legal pig-pile on the Internet company. In an annual report filed yesterday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Yahoo (YHOO) said the company has been named in seven shareholder lawsuits claiming it has mishandled its response to Microsoft’s [...]
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Some people have been critical of Skype, but I am very proud of the company’s growth. Very few companies can claim to match the growth trajectory Skype is on and continues to be on.”
Skype co-founder Niklas ‘NZennström’
It’s taken two years longer than it should have, but skepticism with which investors met eBay’s $2.6 billion-plus [...]
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The Securities and Exchange Commission has subpoenaed Apple CEO Steve Jobs in connection with a backdating lawsuit against former Apple General Counsel Nancy Heinen. Seems the SEC wants Jobs to testify against Heinen, whom it sued in late April for allegedly backdating stock-option grants to Jobs and other Apple execs.
And that puts Jobs in an [...]
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Dell must have appreciated the lackluster financial quarters it had under former chief executive Kevin Rollins a lot more than it let on, because it gave him a hell of a parting gift. In a filing yesterday with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Dell said it will pay Rollins $48.5 million for his now-expired stock [...]
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The hammer has finally fallen on Greg “it’s not illegal if you don’t get caught” Reyes. Yesterday afternoon, a jury found the former Brocade Communications Systems CEO (and consultant) guilty on ten felony counts of securities fraud in the nation’s first criminal trial over the backdating of stock options.
Reyes was charged last year with [...]
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