Apple’s ex-general counsel seeking records in stock options defense
Posted by Dennis Sellers 
Nov 5, 2007 at 11:46am
Apple’s former general counsel, Nancy Heinen, is involved in a pre-trial dispute in which evidence being assembled to aid her defense against accusations of involvement in the company’s stock options scandal is said to violate federal privacy laws.
She’s seeking private records of a lawyer she hired to defend against a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit accusing Heinen of illegally backdating stock options, reports Bloomberg.
Heinen seeks loan records to show Wendy Howell was under financial pressure “to do anything’’ to keep her job at Apple and to discredit her as a witness in the SEC’s case, according to court documents filed by Howell in federal court in San Jose, California.
“Heinen’s attempt at a fishing expedition through Ms. Howell’s private financial information in the hopes of somehow shifting blame to Ms. Howell’’ violates federal privacy laws, according to the documents.
As noted by Bloomberg, the SEC sued Heinen in April, accusing her of backdating a 7.5 million-share option grant to Apple Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs in 2001 and earlier grants to his executive team. Howell has claimed Heinen instructed her to falsify documentation for the grants, and she seeks to block Heinen from getting some of the financial records. Heinen has denied any wrongdoing.
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Dennis Sellers
Dennis has been a newspaper editor/reporter (seven years) and teacher (seven years). He has over 4,000 magazine, newspaper and online articles to his credit. He has also covered the Mac and tech industries for over a decade for such online publications as MacCentral, MacMinute and now MacsimumNews.
