Apple Disclosures On Steve Jobs’ Health May Still Face SEC Scrutiny

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is reportedly still examining whether Apple misled investors on Steve Jobs’ health, raising questions over how critical Jobs is to Apple’s future.

Jobs returned to work at Apple in June after a five-month leave, during which he had a liver transplant. The transplant was initially reported by the Wall Street Journal in June and subsequently confirmed by Methodist University Hospital in Memphis, which performed the surgery.

Apple's disclosures about the state of Job's health are still of interest to securities regulators, Bloomberg reports.

The question for the SEC is what Apple’s board of directors knew about Jobs’ health when he left Apple and how much of what they knew was disclosed.

On January 5, the day before MacWorld, Jobs announced in an open letter that he was taking a leave to continue treatment for a hormone imbalance that had caused him to lose weight throughout 2008.

Looking gaunt, he described his condition as a “nutritional problem” that was “relatively simple and straightforward” to treat. Jobs said he would continue as Apple’s CEO, and his letter was backed by a statement of support from the board.

Nine days later, however, on January 14, Jobs announced that his health problems “are more complex than I originally thought.” He said that although he was still CEO, he would take a medical leave of absence until the end of June, leaving day-to-day operations to Apple’s chief operating officer Tim Cook.

“As CEO, I plan to remain involved in major strategic decisions while I am out,” Jobs wrote. “Our board of directors fully supports this plan.”

Apple appears to have done all right during Jobs’ absence, despite concerns that he is so important to Apple, the details of his health problems should have been shared with investors.

The company's profits in the second fiscal quarter rose by more than 15% as soaring iPhone sales made up for a decline in sales of Mac computers. Apple introduced a new iPhone 3GS and updates to several other products. It is due to report quarterly earnings on July 21.

In addition to Jobs, Apple board members include Intuit Chairman Bill Campbell, J.Crew CEO Millard Drexler, Avon CEO Andrea Jung, Genentech chairman Arthur Levinson, Harwinton Capital CEO Jerry York, Google CEO Eric Schmidt and former vice president Al Gore.

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