Ex-Apple Chief Financial Officer, Fred Anderson's attorney issued a statement Tuesday stating that Apple CEO Steve Jobs told the former CFO to backdate stock options.
Following this mornings report that the SEC has reached a settlement with Anderson in the stock-options investigation.
An internal investigation found that Jobs was aware of the backdating, but did not financially gain from it and did nothing wrong.
According to to Anderson's attorney he was told by Jobs in late January 2001 thats Jobs had an agreement with the board of directors to grant stock options on January 2nd. According to the statement, Anderson "cautioned" Jobs that the grant would have to be priced based on the date of the board agreement “or there could be an accounting charge,” and also told Jobs the board would have to confirm it had given prior approval for the grant dates “in a legally satisfactory method.”
Jobs confidently assured Anderson that the board had given approval; “relied on these statements by Mr. Jobs and from them concluded the grant was being properly handled,” the statement said.
Anderson understood that according to Apple’s stock option plan and accounting rules, the grant date could be moved to a later date and there wouldn’t be any related compensation expense so long as the stock price was higher than it had been on the original date. He understood that the date was moved from Jan. 2 to Jan. 17 “to avoid any appearance of impropriety that might arise from a grant awarded just prior to the stock price rise that resulted from the Macworld exhibition and Mr. Jobs’ keynote speech” given there on Jan. 9 in which he offered details of new products.