The U.S. official investigators have reportedly condemned Apple’s inquiry in the controversial backdating stock options. The officials have asked the computer giant to provide more documents pertaining to how executives were awarded the contentious bonuses. Apple has published the inquiry report last month, which was considered inadequate by the investigators from the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the market regulator, and the Department of Justice.
It is also learnt that the official investigators were not satisfied with the company’s inquiry report to the extent that they called in Steve Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, for questioning last week. The foremost concern was raised by the officials that Apple has failed to explain satisfactorily the procedure which was used to grant stock options to its workers.
The stock option controversy dates back to December 2001 when options were granted to Steve Jobs. The options were backdated to October when prices of shares of the company were lower assuring much bigger profit if the options were cashed in. Moreover, Apple has acknowledged that it tampered records to show that a board meeting was held to approve the move however the fact was no such meeting was held in Apple’s office.
In the meanwhile, Apple declined to comment on this issue. The company officials have reportedly said that the investigating authorities would prefer to make no public comments and indicated that the investigation will be continued for some time. At present as much as 150 cases pertaining to stock options grant is being investigated and Apple is the most prominent company among them.
