investigation
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Financial Times: Forged Documents related to Jobs' options
Sources have informed The Financial Times of London that the forged documents at the center of the ongoing SEC investigation relate to illegal activities surrounding options given to Steven Jobs. According to the FT story, Jobs "was handed 7.5m stock options in 2001 without the required authorization from the company's board of directors." and that "Records that purported to show a full board meeting had taken place to approve Mr Jobs' remuneration, as required by Apple's procedures, were later falsified."If this is in fact the case, it certainly makes sense that Jobs would seek his own external legal counsel both to more closely protect his personal interests as well as put some distance between himself and the company as a whole. Update: The FT article makes no mention of wrong doing by Jobs himself, and as such this post has been updated.[via Cult of Mac]
Corruption investigation postpones Nokia-Siemens merger
A review into Siemens's compliance with an investigation into corruption has postponed the company's equipment merger with Nokia. A merger of network infrastructure at the two companies may now be put back several months as investigators determine the validity of bribery charges levied at Siemens, and the effects of the arrest of the former head of Siemens's equipment group come to light. As recently as November, the two companies had stated that they expected to become Nokia Siemens Networks -- which was estimated would produce $20 billion a year in revenue -- by January 2007. The companies now expect the merger to be complete by sometime in the first financial quarter of next year, although that depends on how well, or badly, the investigation progresses. As long as the two companies keep on cranking out the phones, then we'll remain obliviously happy, but if the investigation turns up s'more dirt, we'll be sure to shovel it through the nearest web browser window.
Nintendo to investigate Wii strap failure
Satoru Iwata has confirmed with the Foreign Correspondents Club in Tokyo that Nintendo will investigate reports that the Wiimote strap is malfunctioning. Nintendo contends that the strap has been manufactured securely, but admits that "people are getting a lot more excited than we'd expected."Iwata stressed the need for "additional methods to encourage people to kind of calm down," as if in-game warnings and a mass email aren't enough. If these incidents keep up, Nintendo's gonna institute a Wii license exam. Oy!For your reference:"Wii Have A Problem," an accident archive
Feds tracking AMD/ATI, Nvidia in antitrust probe
The Merc reports about a federal antitrust probe -- the best kind of probe -- into the graphics-card industry. Nvidia and ATI -- through recent buyer AMD -- have been served with subpoenas asking for company documents that go back to the late '90s. The Justice Department wants records about "customers, product lines, competition, pricing of products, prices of competitors' products, market studies, and product volumes," according to Nvidia mouthpiece Michael Hara, as quoted in the article.The feds haven't described the exact nature of the investigation and haven't made any allegations, saying only that it relates to "anti-competitive practices." But the probe is most likely about collusion and price-fixing between graphics card companies. Basically, competing companies agree to set similar price points, keeping them artificially high, while limiting the affect of market forces to lower prices.Could this mean the beginning of the end of $600 -- or more -- enthusiast graphics cards? Have console prices been (slightly) higher because of artificial GPU costs? As consumers, we can only hope, but it'll take many months before we learn if the companies broke any laws.
German prosecutors probing BenQ Mobile's bankruptcy
Another day, another company slamming the doors shut, and another governmental group prying them back open to sniff things out. Shortly after BenQ pulled the plug on its German mobile division (and somehow got its P51 to China), chief senior public prosecutor Christian Schmidt-Sommerfeld has initiated an investigation to find out just what went down behind the scenes of the now-closed company. It's possible that "a number of bankruptcy-related offenses were committed," such as delaying their filing for bankruptcy and overstating how many units were sold in the most recent quarter by a couple million. Rumors had already surfaced regarding management's knowledge of the cashflow quandaries and their adamant indifference towards finding a solution, eliciting statements of "being lied to" to mar the already unfortunate closing. Nevertheless, we're sure someone will get to the bottom of all this, but unfortunately there's nothing they can do to bring all those unreleased (and sexy) mobiles to market.[Via The Register]
US Justice Department probing Sony, others for SRAM doings
These kids just can't catch a break. The folks at Sony, fresh off their battery debacle, and struggling to make any sort of relevant quantity for next month's PS3 launch, are being probed by the US Justice Department's antitrust division in regards to the company's SRAM biz. Sony, which did $27.7 million worth of SRAM business last year, says it "intends to cooperate fully with the DOJ in what appears to be an industry-wide inquiry," but that's about all the info we've got so far. Apparently US-based Cypress Semiconductor is also under investigation for similar SRAM doings, and Mitsubishi is even in some retroactive trouble, but there's no word if the situation is similar to the price-fixing scandal that Samsung and others got busted for earlier this year. We'll be keeping an eye on this investigation as it develops. It seems unlikely that any sort of accusations that could come out of this could do much damage to Sony's relatively small share in the industry, but we really wouldn't mind a feel-good puff piece on Sony now and then -- you know, just for a change of pace.
Fred Anderson resigns from Apple Board
In a comment under yesterday's report on the outcome of the Apple stock option investigation, SubGenius wisely proclaimed "Fred is going to be the fall guy." Congratulations, SubGenius - you win a brand new star! (or at least you will when the star system is working again)Fred Anderson, who valiantly served as Apple CFO from '96 to '04, informed Apple that he believes "it is in Apple's best interests that he resign from the board at this time." His official resignation was Sept 30, 2006. Of course just because Anderson resigned from the board doesn't mean he did anything wrong or that he's covering up for anyone else.. this kind of thing happens all the time. He probably just wants to spend more time with his family and improve his golf swing.
Apple's Special Committee Reports Findings of Stock Option Investigation
Back in August, Apple announced they had found some stock option irregularities and launched an internal investigation to get to the bottom of things. This voluntary audit netted a warning of de-listing from NASDAQ because they had to delay filing their Q3 earnings results (fortuately, NASDAQ cut Apple a break). Today, the big fruit has issued a press release with the findings of this audit, which was performed by a special committee of outside directors, independent counsel and accountants. This crack team had to shuffle through over 650,000 emails and documents (Spotlight to the rescue!), as well as conduct over 40 interviews of current and past employees.In summary, the investigation's results go a little something like this: No misconduct by current members of Apple management was found The most recent evidence of 'irregularities' points to 15 stock option grants made between 1997 and 2002. Said grants were apparently issued before their approval dates Steve Jobs knew about the grant dates, but he apparently didn't know about the slight-of-hand accounting implications, nor did he benefit from any of them The data found 'raises serious concerns' of two former officers related to the accounting, recording and reporting of these grants. Apple will provide details to the SEC Mr J is quoted apologizing to Apple's shareholders and employees for these problems, especially since they happened under his watch, saying "They are completely out of character for Apple." He continues saying "We will now work to resolve the remaining issues as quickly as possible and to put the proper remedial measures in place to ensure that this never happens again," i.e. - somebody's in for a whole lotta iButt woopin'.In the collateral damage department, Fred Anderson, Apple's former CFO from 1996 to 2004 who now serves on the company's board of directors, has decided now might be a good time to resign from said board.Finally, Apple and the audit committee agree that the company will ultimately have to restate their historical financial statements to "record non-cash charges for compensation expense relating to past stock option grants." At this time however, the company is still working to analyze their findings and determine which periods will need restating, as well as the differential amounts.
Dell looking into flaming laptop incident
You've got to hand it to Dell; even though its laptops may burst into flames at the most inopportune moments, at least the company has the good sense to conduct a prompt and public investigation into the matter (although the worldwide coverage of those "inflammatory" photos probably helped speed things up just a bit). Apparently the charred remains from that fateful conference in Osaka, Japan have been beamed back up to the mother ship, where Dell engineers are furiously working to discover how their product turned into a pyrotechnics show that amused and frightened us all. As usual, everyone's looking to pin this incident on that easiest of scapegoats -- the malfunctioning battery -- but whatever the problem turns out to be, we're sure hoping it gets fixed before another notebook decides to disobey the "no smoking" sign and light up on an airplane.
SEC to begin probe into Xero Mobile
Well, you can imagine the surprise we're all feeling over here at Engadget HQ at the news of Xero Mobile -- the MVNO started by former Gizmondo execs -- getting calls from the US Securities and Exchange Commission regarding their "conducting an informal inquiry relating to certain aspects of the company's business." For example, how they intend to pay back all those investors after a track record of pump and dump business scams? Something like that? Apparently Xero feigned innocence, shrugging off the initial inquiry, stating they are "unaware of the reason for the request," but apparently are preparing to cooperate voluntarily even though no formal investigation has begun. Oh sure, we have to give them credit for opening themselves up to SEC queries even though they're not yet formally indicted, but you'll have to forgive us if we're just a little skeptical about these guys, even when they claim to be showing their hand.
