This is by Henry Blodgett:
Apple's Steve Jobs Subpoena: More Serious Than Sounds
Henry Blodget | September 20, 2007 3:51 PM
WSJ et al reports that Steve Jobs has been subpoenaed to testify in a civil stock-option backdating case the SEC has brought against Apple's (AAPL) former general counsel Nancy Heinen. Jobs' lawyers will no doubt brush this news aside as immaterial, but it's a dangerous situation for him (and, thereby, Apple shareholders).
The background: Jobs has skated untouched through Apple's backdating mess, despite findings that he helped select the dates chosen. Jobs' defenders say he did nothing wrong because he "didn't appreciate the accounting implications" of backdating (WSJ). Apple's former CFO, Fred Anderson, meanwhile, said publicly that Jobs misled him about board actions on stock-option grants. One of Jobs' former lieutenants, therefore, is accusing him of dishonesty on this issue, and the company's official investigation pardoned him only because of his mindset about what he did (instead of, say, denying that he did it).
This creates an exceptionally tricky situation with regard to sworn testimony. Even though Jobs is a witness, not a target, the SEC's litigators and Heinen's lawyers will no doubt ask him questions that will require him to revisit previous statements. Because Apple's defense of his conduct rests on subtle distinctions, Jobs' testimony will have to be both 1) exceptionally precise, and 2) perfectly consistent with what he said previously (and with what the SEC and Heinen's lawyers believe are the facts)...
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