Government requests docs

Apple has received an informal request from the U.S. government for more information and documents on its past stock-options practices, the company said in a regulatory filing on Friday. Apple received the request after it gave the results of an internal review to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California. The company has previously said it will take an $84 million charge for misdating more than 6,400 stock options: "Resolution of these matters will be time-consuming, expensive, and will distract management from the conduct of the company's business," Apple said in an SEC filing. Last month, officials from the U.S. Justice Department and the SEC met with CEO Steve Jobs in San Francisco, but details were scarce. Apple's own internal investigation, which launched in late June of 2006, looked at the better part of a million documents and found that no current management was guilty of any wrongdoing, but took an $84 million charge related to the backdating.

by MacNN Staff