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Tim Cook In Hot Soup With SEC, Awarded $57 Million By Apple

Shortly after being under heat with the Securities and Exchange Commission for the content of a private email sent to Jim Cramer of CNBC, Apple CEO Tim Cook received over $57 million worth of shares in his company for the positive performance of Apple on Wall Street over the course of the past two years. He sold none of these shares, just over half of which were retained by the company for tax purposes in accordance with a revised schedule created under Cook’s request in 2013.

According to MarketWatch, the well-protected Cook wrote in his email correspondence, “We rarely comment on moves in Apple stock. But…growth in iPhone activations has accelerated over the past few weeks.” These comments were among those said to be in violation of the SEC’s Regulation FD rule that prevents publicly traded companies from releasing information to those who could utilize that information to make a profit. “Obviously I can’t predict the future,” wrote Cook, “but our performance so far this quarter is reassuring.”

Dorsey lawyer Thomas Gorman noted in a Fortune article, “At the very least, the SEC will contact Apple to seek context for this disclosure.”

At the very least, the SEC will contact Apple to seek context for this disclosure.

This developing story hit the headlines around the same time that Cook was gifted with 560,000 shares of Apple stock as a reward for Apple’s excellent recent market performance. In total, Cook now owns over 1,170,000 shares in his own company, which are presently worth over $120 million.

Strict performance measurements were considered in the determination of Cook’s reward. Apple’s stocks finished in the top third of companies in the S&P 500 over the considered two-year time span. This means there was no deduction of the award. Had Apple fell to the middle or bottom third of this list, the award would have been cut in half or eliminated altogether, as Apple Insider noted.

Cook may have felt the incentive to keep the company’s performance high. The life of an Apple CEO is surely never dull.

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