The Long Arm of the Law reaches up to pick an Apple.
Posted on January 8, 2007
Steve Jobs and Apple are certainly stealing quite a few headlines. While the success of company is irrefutable there is quite a bit of analysis suggesting that the dark cloud around company management and the board of directors vis a vis options backdating is going to shed some rain rather than blow over. For example Mark Anderson over at the Strategic News Service has been an early siren on the high probability that Jobs has some exposure to this issue. A recent analysis by Christopher Whalen from Institutional Risk Analytics elaborates on the situation in a way that makes you think that Jobs and the BoD at Apple may be robbed of their happy smiles despite all the success at Apple.
There is indeed a notion that the penalty seems too great for the crime in the case of Jobs. After all if everyone was doing backdating and Jobs didn’t personally benefit should such an important and productive CEO be taken out of his job? The shortcoming of such thinking is that the law is not a matter of personal opinion and selective applicability. Today we may be finally seeing a turn in the tide of thinking that the law can be interpreted and applied when deemed appropriate. On a broader stage it seems clear that some number of actions taken by the Bush administration in the US clearly violate the law in general and the U.S. Constitution in particular. Here again it’s described in a context about this being a case where the law or the Constitution should not be rigorously applied. Amazingly guys like Dick Cheney actually admit that they would not comply with a congressional subpoena to give testimony.
Even after Enron and the Wall Street Settlement there seems to still be an attitude of ignoring laws when they seem inconvenient or “common practice.” Although I have high regard for Apple products and use them every day it doesn’t mean that I would accept some illegal activity on the part of the company.
Watching this play out will hopefully serve as a reminder that the law is blind and those in power without the integrity to follow it or at least make amends will be cut down just like anyone else.
Comments
Leave a Comment
If you would like to make a comment, please fill out the form below.