Report: Jobs' health could lead to investor lawsuits

In the wake of Steve Jobs' announcement that he will take a medical leave of absence until June, legal experts already anticipate a number of lawsuits aimed at Apple, according to Reuters. Investors have been frustrated with the company's lack of disclosure and vague statements regarding the matter. Jobs has quickly gone from supposedly experiencing dietary issues to his current status that requires 6 months of down-time for to deal with problems that he considers "more complex than I originally thought."

The company has been accused of hiding the reality of the CEO's condition, denying any reason concern despite his clearly gaunt appearance that has not shown any sign of improvement through the end of last year. After undergoing surgery for pancreatic cancer in 2004, the subject was largely dismissed until the iPhone 3G launch in June of 2008. His apparent loss of weight ignited speculation that the cancer had returned, although the company cited a "common bug."

As confidence fell amongst groups of investors, Jobs initially refused to provide more details and considered his health "a private matter." Sources later reported that he underwent a second surgery to address the weight loss. After Bloomberg accidentally published his obituary template, he went on stage at an iPod event and tried to bring a humorous tone to the mistake.

AAPL stock is particularly volatile to the speculation, wavering up and down with the rumors and subsequent denials. An October story on CNN's iReport.com site falsely claimed that he had been rushed to the hospital because of a heart attack. Despite the site being open for anyone to post stories without any fact-checking, the company's market value was driven down $4.8 billion in the first hour of trading.

Jobs finally publicly acknowledged a hormonal imbalance last week, but claimed that the remedy was "relatively simple and straightforward." The announcement was released before the Macworld conference. Whether he was gently leading up to bigger news, or truly ignorant of the severity, remains unknown. On Wednesday, however, he admitted that the problems were more complex than he originally thought.

Analysts consider the value of Apple's stock to be linked with its CEO, to a deeper degree than many other companies would experience. The lawsuits will likely stem from investors that believe the company intentionally kept his health a secret in an attempt to keep the stock prices artificially high.

Legally, the debate falls into a gray area, somewhere in between the rights to privacy and the obligation to disclose information that would have a serious effect on investors' perceived risk. "It is extremely difficult because it is the most private part of his life," said Steve Williams, an attorney for Cotchett Pitre & McCarthy. "At the same time, Apple is Steve Jobs."

Joseph Grundfest, former Commissioner of the SEC, believes that Apple will not be held accountable unless people within the company made trades based on the knowledge before it was publicly announced. He also considered, however, that the company could have intentionally understated the illness. "If the company misled me by giving me the impression that (Jobs) was going to continue to lead the company, that could be an actionable statement," he said.

The plaintiffs' attorneys could still have a difficult time proving that the severity of Jobs' health condition had been fully known for an extended length of time. "It is not the same as looking at a piece of financial information at the end of the month," said an attorney, who remained anonymous because of his firm's current involvement in separate proceedings with Apple.

Filed under: industry, Apple