LOS ANGELES (AP) - The Walt Disney Co. said Friday that while stock-option awards to some employees of Pixar Animation Studios were backdated, no one associated with Disney today -- including board member Steve Jobs -- deliberately did anything wrong.
The stock-option grants were made to key Pixar employees before Disney bought the company last year.
Disney Chairman John E. Pepper said the company would follow up on the additional income tax liability facing Pixar employees who hold the options and would participate in programs established by the Internal Revenue Service and the state of California to facilitate the payment of those taxes.
The costs associated with remedying the tax issues will 'not be material' to Disney's financial statement, Pepper said.
Pixar Animation Studios granted stock options to key executives four times since 1997 on dates that coincided with the company's lowest stock price, company filings show.
Jobs did not receive any of the options grants from Pixar. Instead, they were given to John Lasseter, Ed Catmull and other executives.
Lasseter and Catmull assumed important roles at Disney after the acquisition. Catmull runs Disney's feature animation unit while Lasseter is a creative consultant for both Disney's animated films and theme park attractions. The two executives also continue to run Pixar, which is based in Emeryville.
At least 203 companies have disclosed SEC, Department of Justice, or internal probes into their stock-options practices, according to an Associated Press review. The investigations focus on backdating -- which occurs when a stock option's exercise price is set at a point lower than the prevailing market price on the date of the grant, a practice that can inflate the recipient's award.
Although the manipulation itself isn't necessarily illegal, securities laws require that companies properly disclose the practice in their accounting and settle any resulting charges.
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