I'm not convinced. It's one thing for the board to tell the shareholders about big changes at their regular meetings; it's another thing entirely to require them to disclose information other than "CEO is on break until June."
Apple's Disclosures Regarding Jobs' Health Remain Under Scrutiny by SEC
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iSee
macrumors 68040
Only stockholders have a right to that information...
Ha, ha.
I know you're just making a joke, but it's actually a key point that both buyers and sellers have access to the same information. So, both stockholders and potential stockholders have the right to the same information.
newyorkone
macrumors 6502
SEC doesn't have better things to do???
Considering the amorphous nature of the laws concerning the issue of Steve Jobs Health and what Apple should disclose, it seems that the SEC should focus it's energy on bigger and more serious issues.
Haven't they dropped the ball enough already...ahem (cough), Madoff! Stop wasting time and taxpayer money on maybe issues. There are countless other Madoffs out there getting away with financial murder.
Considering the amorphous nature of the laws concerning the issue of Steve Jobs Health and what Apple should disclose, it seems that the SEC should focus it's energy on bigger and more serious issues.
Haven't they dropped the ball enough already...ahem (cough), Madoff! Stop wasting time and taxpayer money on maybe issues. There are countless other Madoffs out there getting away with financial murder.
Eric S.
macrumors 68040
The answer is, yes, obviously.
I don't see a problem with their disclosures.
Whether he's on medical leave for a liver transplant or just to get some rest, his medical details should not be the shareholder's business. People are still allowed some privacy even if they are a CEO. Requiring otherwise would set a very bad precedent.
Whether he's on medical leave for a liver transplant or just to get some rest, his medical details should not be the shareholder's business. People are still allowed some privacy even if they are a CEO. Requiring otherwise would set a very bad precedent.
MrCrispy
macrumors member
Well, I think its a catch 22.
A) maybe they did need to disclose his health in order to keep the SEC happy.
B) Disclosing those issues would have been a violation of HIPAA regulations which would have put the company in hot water with a different organization.
Can't really win either way.
A) maybe they did need to disclose his health in order to keep the SEC happy.
B) Disclosing those issues would have been a violation of HIPAA regulations which would have put the company in hot water with a different organization.
Can't really win either way.
Does anyone READ the articles before responding?
- If you say nothing, that's fine.
- If you tell the whole truth, that's fine.
- If you lie, that might not be fine. Omissions can be included in this.
APPL said it was a minor ailment in a specific way, then changed their mind to say "more serious." As I read the regs, their original statement /may/ have opened the door to requiring them to continue to update, with the same specificity. So SEC investigages to see if that was a violation. For all the usual law enforcement reasons.
We're never going to wild-west free markets, so investigating after the fact is pretty non-intrusive. Everyone big gets investigated (to some degree or other) pretty regularly.
This forum needs more mods.
- If you say nothing, that's fine.
- If you tell the whole truth, that's fine.
- If you lie, that might not be fine. Omissions can be included in this.
APPL said it was a minor ailment in a specific way, then changed their mind to say "more serious." As I read the regs, their original statement /may/ have opened the door to requiring them to continue to update, with the same specificity. So SEC investigages to see if that was a violation. For all the usual law enforcement reasons.
We're never going to wild-west free markets, so investigating after the fact is pretty non-intrusive. Everyone big gets investigated (to some degree or other) pretty regularly.
This forum needs more mods.
jbernie
macrumors 6502a
Yup, just because it is Apple and they are oh glorious "good" company, and just because there are other things going on in the financial world, Apple should get a free pass, nothing to see here, move along now.
I'm sure that if you were defrauded of your life savings by a popular person but there was also some other major event going on, you would be very happy to see the police give the person who defrauded you a free pass because there are other things they need to focus on, remember, think of the children! At least Madoff got 150 years.
If Apple broke laws then they need to be held accountable regardless of whether or not other things are happening. You are asking the SEC to turn a blind eye to potentially improper conduct by senior executives of a major corporation yet at the same time asking them to investigate senior executives of other major companies for the same thing. Double standards abound.
If Steve Jobs & Apple do not want to have the health of their CEO discussed then they can take the company private and not be required to disclose anything more than tax filings or Steve Jobs can move to a non executive/board role within Apple where he can still maintain influence but his health is no longer material information relating to the health of Apple itself. Regardless because Steve Jobs is an iconic public figure who is basically worshipped by the Apple faithful his health will discussed whether he or Apple likes it or not.
Ultimately Apple dug themselves into this hole:
you don't say on Day 1: "minor issue, nothing to see here"
and then say on Day 10: "umm oops, sorry, need 6 months medical leave".
and then say after 6 months: "hey surprise, i got a new liver"
If they didn't want to raise eyebrows and get the SEC involved they should have waited until they had all their ducks in a row and said "Steve needs to take 6 months leave", even then it still raises questions, taking 6 months leave and getting a secret liver transplant isn't exactly a minor issue, those kinds of medical procedures still expose the company to the risk of losing their iconic CEO due to complications.
Blacklabel34
macrumors 6502
thank you SEC
REALLY SEC? Next time this happens, who wants to bet Apple doesn't say a thing!? They're bigger issues at hand and they focus on Job's health. R-I-G-H-T...
REALLY SEC? Next time this happens, who wants to bet Apple doesn't say a thing!? They're bigger issues at hand and they focus on Job's health. R-I-G-H-T...
windywoo
macrumors 6502a
REALLY SEC? Next time this happens, who wants to bet Apple doesn't say a thing!? They're bigger issues at hand and they focus on Job's health. R-I-G-H-T...
Yeah lets overlook what could be a blatant infringement of the rules, just because Steve Jobs is such a nice guy.
jbernie
macrumors 6502a
No it wont, HIPAA would only be in play if the Doctor, Medical Facility, insurance company or the company (Apple) disclosed the information without prior consent/authorization from Steve Jobs.
From what was reported:
- the Hospital did a media release with Steve Jobs approval saying that they peformed the operation. so no violation.
- if the hospital was breathelessly announcing how they were so happy to have just done a liver transplant on Steve Jobs 5 minutes ago and they hadnt obtained his approval to release any information. it is a violation.
- to my knowledge Apple has not released any press release saying it happened, just that he was returning to work as expected. so no violation.
- if Apple released a statement saying he had had a liver transplant and Apple had Steve Jobs authorize the release of the information then it still isn't a violation.
http://www.hhs.gov/hipaafaq/use/index.html
At this point any statement from Apple would just officially confirm what is already in the public domain.
jbernie
macrumors 6502a
REALLY SEC? Next time this happens, who wants to bet Apple doesn't say a thing!? They're bigger issues at hand and they focus on Job's health. R-I-G-H-T...
Actually Apple could have kept their mouths shut for a few more weeks and not had any issues, they came out sprouting blooming roses that there was no issue and then had to say 9 days later he needed 6 months leave. This is what got Apple caught in the mess.
If you are going to announce material information to the shareholders then make sure you get it right, if you screw it up then the SEC and friends want to pay a visit and have a cup of tea, some cookies & a little chat with you.
What the law says
Some posters here (and in similar discussions I have read on other sites) think that Steve's health is a private matter, and the public has no right to know about it. This may not be the case. Any corporation that offers stock for public sale is legally required to disclose all so-called "material facts" that might affect the value of its stock. If Apple had simply refused to divulge the truth about Steve's health and had taken the position that the health of a corporate CEO does not constitute a "material fact" they might, for all I know to the contrary (I'm not a lawyer), have had a case that would stand up in court. But they didn't do this. Instead, they knowingly put out false information about the nature and severity of Steve's medical problem. That's something very different indeed, now they can be accused of falsifying a material fact, not just have failed to divulge something that may or may not be classified as such, and this perhaps counts as criminal misconduct. I should imagine that this leaves their corporate ass hanging in the wind. And as an AAPL shareholder, I'm afraid I have to agree the SEC is very much entitled to look into this
Some posters here (and in similar discussions I have read on other sites) think that Steve's health is a private matter, and the public has no right to know about it. This may not be the case. Any corporation that offers stock for public sale is legally required to disclose all so-called "material facts" that might affect the value of its stock. If Apple had simply refused to divulge the truth about Steve's health and had taken the position that the health of a corporate CEO does not constitute a "material fact" they might, for all I know to the contrary (I'm not a lawyer), have had a case that would stand up in court. But they didn't do this. Instead, they knowingly put out false information about the nature and severity of Steve's medical problem. That's something very different indeed, now they can be accused of falsifying a material fact, not just have failed to divulge something that may or may not be classified as such, and this perhaps counts as criminal misconduct. I should imagine that this leaves their corporate ass hanging in the wind. And as an AAPL shareholder, I'm afraid I have to agree the SEC is very much entitled to look into this
deconstruct60
macrumors G5
There is probably a non-legal "good manners/protocol" debate that can be had about that sequence (or not releasing info during the medical leave specifically).
The legal issue the SEC is after is if whether or not on Day 1 Jobs ( and perhaps other members of board) knew (been told by doctors ) that he had liver failure/cancer/whatever and that the root cause was not nutritional problem. That saying it was a "nutritional problem" was just a cover so that folks would go away and could later 'disappear' to have a transplanet on the "down low".
That is making a false material statement. Doesn't really have to do with health, HIPAA or any of the other diversionary stuff that people keep throwing up. Health is just the domain of the false material statement, but no different in principle than
Day One: we expect to make $2B profit this quarter.
Day 10: oops not going to make $2B profit this quarter
6 months later : had huge accounting glitch and made no money two quarters ago.
Again it is case of when you knew it was true at the time of each statement. If on Day one the company officier knew that there was no way was going to make $2B in profit that quarter, it is a false material statement. If the accountants came to the CEO and told him that only had $100K in profits so far in quarter and projections had it coming up to only $900K by quarter end. It would be false to go out and state that expected to hit some $2B mark when there was nothing to support that.
Same SEC investigation either way.
Now if the doctors told Jobs they were confident that if he just ate different food he would be OK. Then deeper tests put a liver tumor on the table after the first statement. Told the truth as far as knew it. SEC will verify the sequence and investigation over.
Similar, the finance example. If was bringing in money hand over first and then somehow the market collapsed, earthquake blew up factory , or something completely unexpected happened to throw off expectation. Then find out somebody at lower level was cooking the books several months later... then not in trouble for the misleading statements. [ might be in trouble because financial controls were loose enough some low level person could cook the books for their division. ]
The better course, if Jobs really wanted to keep it out of the press, would have been to just take the long extended sick leave as soon as decided it was his #1 problem to work on before even found out what root cause was (assume the worst and come back earlier if isn't). So back in December just issue note "going on sick leave till July, hopefully see y'all after the 4th of July. Going to devote 100% of my time to getting better. ".
What is ironic is that if external folks weren't hounding him over his health would he have taken time out to get get the treatment to save his life? If his doctors were clueless he had a major liver problem and he kept putting off getting more precise help, there was a significant probability would have let this drag on till it really was fatal and there weren't any options.
That's one reason why folks have a problem with this. Billionaire, cancer survivor with much higher than average risk for liver cancer and can afford any doctor/test he wants, and somehow he is wandering around Apple getting sicker every day and ignorant of what is the root cause. It could have happened that way. Many people with the resources and the risk would have been a bit more proactive and known sooner.
However, in this case ignorance was bliss. Jobs will have ducked both problems if he was ignorant of his health. Lucky dude.
NT1440
macrumors P6
Well jeez, i dunno, maybe because he came back EXACTLY WHEN THEY SAID HE WOULD. Thats how it had no impact upon his return time.
batchtaster
macrumors 65816
AidenShaw
macrumors P6
Remember....
Remember that the SEC is still ticked off about Jobs and Apple over the stock option backdating scandal. Did they buy the bit about Jobs not knowing what was going on? No, but they had no proof that would hold up.
REALLY SEC? Next time this happens, who wants to bet Apple doesn't say a thing!? They're bigger issues at hand and they focus on Job's health. R-I-G-H-T...
Remember that the SEC is still ticked off about Jobs and Apple over the stock option backdating scandal. Did they buy the bit about Jobs not knowing what was going on? No, but they had no proof that would hold up.
Stella
macrumors G3
Due to the position and influence that SJ welds at Apple, his health is significant and not so private as the health of the average Joe.
macshill
macrumors 6502
But to be fair all around, you'd have to say the same thing if Bill Gates had done this.
I disagree w/ you when it's the CEO of a company who's stock rises and falls w/ a single rumour, but that's the way companies opperate. So not disclosing something negative that can impact stock can be a form of stock manipulation, just like if Martha Stewart got an early tip on something and dumped it prior to D-day.
Blacklabel34
macrumors 6502
thank you
LethalWolfe
macrumors G3
It's not like the SEC is comprised of a single individual that can only handle one assignment at a time. Saying the SEC should ignore the 'little guys' until all the 'big guys' are caught is like saying the police shouldn't investigate robberies until all the open murder cases are solved.
Lethal