Apple (AAPL) has apparently pointed a finger at inside attorneys as the fellows who did most of the options backdating work that is now under investigation. But, the company may have run out of lawyers to blame, so it has turned to the accountants.
Apple has been informing customers who download a piece of its software that supports faster wireless technology that they need to pay $1.99. Why? Because their accountants have told them the company has to charge to get favorable financial treatment for Apple’s revenue. The accounting profession’s response is that Apple’s position is BS: Quoted in the WSJ: "Accounting doesn’t require any charge for anything," says Edward Trott, a member of the Financial Accounting Standards Board,
Apple is clearly a company with tremendous creativity. The iPod will be remembered as one of the great consumer electronics products of the last several decades. But, the company has a habit of coming up with odd excuses for its behavior and making it appear that its powerful CEO is never involved in decisions that might have negative consequences.
The company’s has said that Jobs did nothing wrong with back-dating options. The Apple attorneys and CFO appear to be in line to take blame for that. Some poor CPA in the bowels of Apple’s accounting department appears to be responsible for the $1.99 download program. It is as if no one else was consulted and the decision was made in a vacuum. Once the program started to be criticized, he was probably turned over to local law enforcement for prosecution.
Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at [email protected]. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.
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