carnegie

Xed said:

doggone said:

Mike Wuerthele said:

gatorguy said:

AppleInsider said:

Apple has continuously been buying back stock for the last seven years, and

retiring most of it...

Read on AppleInsider

Hasn't every share acquired under the repurchase program been retired? They can, of course, create new shares someday and sell them, but AFAIK every share in Apple's Repurchase Program has been effectively burned, it no longer exists. 

In the early days of the buy-back they did some other things with a small portion of the shares they re-acquired. For the last four years, as far as I can tell, every share has been completely retired.

When I say "most of it," that's like conservatively 96% have been retired.

Buybacks do retire shares.  But also remember Apple employees have a share option program. Those shares have to be reserved somehow particularly for the bonus programs for executives.  I remember reading a while ago that Apple will announce when they carve out a portion of the shares for this. I don’t know if they create new shares or simply buy existing ones on the open market.  

Not inherently. A company buying back the shares has to choose to retire them v reallocating them. As Mike previously mentioned and later state in your comment, Apple has taken some of the shares it repurchased to distribute to employees as options.

Apple doesn't grant stock options anymore. But for its vesting RSU awards, it issues new shares.

Apple is likely to file its own cert petition, asking the Supreme Court to consider aspects of the case, today or tomorrow. I think the deadline for filing that petition is, as it was for Epic, tomorrow.

foregoneconclusion said:

carnegie said:

foregoneconclusion said:

godofbiscuitssf said:

So Apple has to allow companies to say "you go to <company's website URL> to subscribe", but Epic and other companies don't have a right to their own app stores?

The anti-steering ruling was specific to California state law. I believe Apple is still appealing that ruling, but if they ultimately lose then it's CA only. 

foregoneconclusion said:

flydog said:

foregoneconclusion said:

godofbiscuitssf said:

So Apple has to allow companies to say "you go to <company's website URL> to subscribe", but Epic and other companies don't have a right to their own app stores?

The anti-steering ruling was specific to California state law. I believe Apple is still appealing that ruling, but if they ultimately lose then it's CA only. 

What? No. Wrong!

https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/21060628/epic-apple-injunction.pdf

"The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals found last year that Apple violated California’s Unfair Competition Law by limiting the ability of developers to communicate about alternative payment systems."

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/antitrust/supreme-court-rejects-apples-request-for-epic-app-store-review#

So what I was wrong about was that the appeal per anti-steering was ongoing. SC refused to hear both Epic and Apple's appeals.

The injunction against Apple's anti-steering policies applies nationwide even though it's based on violation of California law.

That doesn't make any sense. You don't extrapolate state laws to cover the entire country. You can say CA has the right to enforce the law because there isn't a federal law regarding anti-steering that takes precedence. 

I get where you're coming from, and Apple made various unsuccesful arguments about the broad scope of the injunction. Regardless, this injunction applies nationwide - e.g., to apps downloaded outside of California and sales made outside of California and with regard to developers that operate outside of California.

Sometimes remedies for state law violations end up effectively applying nationwide. One important question is, does the court in question have proper jurisdiction over the defendant on which it is imposing a remedy? In this case there's no doubt that it does. And as for Epic, the courts have essentially accepted its argument that it can be harmed even by other developers not being able to steer their users to other payment options because those other developers might steer their users to Epic's own store to make payments relating to their iOS apps. So even though other developers aren't parties to this action (and it isn't a class action), the imposed remedy applies to them as well.

This isn't Mr. Cook's first stock sale since 2021. He also sold stock in April of this year when another tranche of shares, from the same RSU award these shares came from, vested.

In September of 2020 he received an RSU award which would have more than 100,000 shares vest in each of April 2023, April 2024, and April 2025. When that first time-based tranche vested in April he sold all of them less the nearly 50% which were withheld for tax purposes. That's what he typically (though not always) does. He would have received around $9 million from the sale of those shares.

That RSU award also included a performance based tranche which would have between 0 and nearly 700,000 shares vest this October. As it turned out he had a little over 500,000 shares vest and sold all that remained after more than 50% were withheld for tax purposes.

As for 2022, he didn't sell any shares that year in large part because he didn't have any shares vest that year.

https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0000320193/33ab9a1c-e116-4117-9323-2355cba0fa2f.pdf

On August 30, 2016, the European Commission (the “Commission”) announced its decision that Ireland granted state aid to Apple Inc. (the “Company”) by providing tax opinions in 1991 and 2007 concerning the tax allocation of profits of the Irish branches of two subsidiaries of the Company (the “State Aid Decision”). The State Aid Decision ordered Ireland to calculate and recover additional taxes from the Company for the period June 2003 through December 2014. Irish legislative changes, effective as of January 2015, eliminated the application of the tax opinions from that date forward. The Company and Ireland appealed the State Aid Decision to the General Court of the Court of Justice of the European Union (the “General Court”). On July 15, 2020, the General Court annulled the State Aid Decision. On September 25, 2020, the Commission appealed the General Court’s decision to the European Court of Justice (the “ECJ”) and a hearing was held on May 23, 2023.

On September 10, 2024, the ECJ announced that it had set aside the 2020 judgment of the General Court and confirmed the Commission’s 2016 State Aid Decision. As a result, the Company expects to record a one-time income tax charge in its fourth fiscal quarter ending September 28, 2024, of up to approximately $10 billion, which will increase the Company’s effective tax rate for the quarter.

This is called a CVSG (Call for the Views of the Solicitor General). I haven't followed the Supreme Court as closely in recent years as I had previously. But in the past the Supreme Court would do this around 10 times a year and the Supreme Court granted cert (i.e. agreed to hear the case) far more often when it issued a CVSG as compared to when it didn't. Further, the Supreme Court followed the suggestion of the Solicitor General the majority of the time after asking for its views.

So I'd say this is a positive development for Apple in this case.

mongobongo said:

carnegie said:

I suppose the U.S. government could again try to get involved, filing a complaint of some sort, since that's where the money that Ireland will collect will ultimately effectively be coming from. 

How is the money effectively coming from the US government and not from Apple?

In order to avoid double taxation (and in the case of corporations, essentially triple taxation when earnings are further distributed to shareholders), U.S. tax law generally provides for credits against U.S. income tax liability for foreign taxes paid on given earnings.

Under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, the earnings on which this new Irish tax liability is largely based are deemed repatriated to the parent Apple and U.S. taxes are owed on those earnings. IIRC Apple had previously estimated a tax liability of $30-40 billion-ish based on the TCJA. Because Apple will now have to pay Ireland more taxes on those earnings, it should get a credit against that U.S. tax liability. Apple’s SEC filings reflect that expectation. In essence, the largest effect of this ruling should be that Apple will pay a portion of its taxes to Ireland rather than to the United States.

AppleInsider said:

Apple CEO Tim Cook has sold shares in his company worth about $33 million, and received just under half that after tax.

As detailed in a filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Cook sold 196,410 shares, and did so in multiple batches. Based on stated prices received per share, Cook earned between $33.04 million and $33.23 million before taxes.

The sums are a fraction of the estimated $355 million he made selling five million shares in 2021. It's also not as much as the last time he sold shares, when he got around $41.5 million in October 2023.

That 2023 sale came at time when Apple's stock was trading lower than usual, and that's also what is happening now. Apple's stock has dropped sufficiently since its all-time high in December 2023 that firms such as Loop Capital have been advising against buying Apple shares lately.

Few analysts, though, have recommended actively selling them, because there are positive signs of recovery.

However, as first spotted by MacRumors, the SEC filing notes that the sale "was made pursuant to a Rule 10b5-1 trading plan adopted by the reporting person on November 28, 2022."

So Cook has a trading plan. While the details Cook has decided on are not known, this means that his shares will automatically be put up for sale when certain conditions are met.

There are insider trading laws governing how company executives can or can't sell shares in their firms, but Cook still has the option to sell outside of his predetermined plan. This is what he did in 2021, when he received five million shares as the last part of his original 2011 contract for taking on the role of CEO.

Aside from that major sale, and smaller ones that appear to have been triggered automatically by his trading plan, Cook has generally held on to his Apple shares. He did so throughout 2022, for instance, when many other Apple executives cashed some in.



Read on AppleInsider

Mr. Cook only sold around $16-1/2 million worth of shares - about 97.2 million of the 196.4 million which just vested. The rest of the vesting shares were withheld by Apple. In these circumstances Apple doesn’t anctually issue those shares. Rather, it submits their value based on the vesting share price to various tax authorities to meet withholding requirements.

I’d also point out that the main reason Mr. Cook didn’t sell shares in 2022 is that he didn’t have any shares vest in 2022. He generally, though not always, sells new shares when they vest. The general timing of his share sales are fairly predictable.

davidw said:

gatorguy said:

lmasanti said:

With all due respect to the US Judiciary system…

Epic vs. Apple was decided by a judge.
Epic vs. Google ws decided by a jury.

The jury makes its decision based in how well the parts ‘expose’ the facts.

At least for me… that is quite different —but legally correct— form of judgement.

What I'm unclear on is why in the Apple case it was decided it should be a bench trial, and with Google it was set up as a jury trial. Not that it would have made any difference since Google managed to piss off the judge.  

My thinking is that because with Apple, Epic could not use iOS as the relevant market to make the claim that Apple App Store is a monopoly (under current anti-trust laws) since one can not use a relevant market that only contains one brand. (Here .... Apple). If Apple had a monopoly with their App Store on iOS, that would make Mercedes having a monopoly with their 4-MATIC transmission, if the relevant market was just Mercedes autos. Disney would have a monopoly on who can open a concession stand, inside a Disneyland. Therefore, Epic first had to have a judge interpret (or re-interpret) current anti-trust laws to rule that the Apple App Store is a monopoly on iOS.  (Which the Judge didn't.) A jury can not make such a ruling. A jury can only rule whether laws as interpreted by the courts, are broken.

Here with Google, Epic was able to use Android OS as the relevant market. In which case, under current anti-trust laws, Google does have a monopoly with their Play Store. This was not hard to prove, as Google Play have over 85% of the market share on Android. Google offers Android OS as free open source software and they allow any mobile device maker to use, modify and customize "open source Android OS", as needed to run on their mobile devices. Therefore, that allows for dozens of app stores available on Android, that competes with Google Play.  It would be much harder, if possible at all, for Google to make the claim that all the different mobile devices running a "fork" of "open source Android OS", makes for a single Google brand and therefore the relevant market for the Google Play Store, can not just include Android OS. The jury did not rule that Google had a monopoly with their Google Play Store on Android. They only ruled that Google monopoly was an "illegal" monopoly because they were abusing it. It made no difference that Google claimed that they compete with the Apple App Store, as the Apple App Store is not part of the relevant market that Epic used to show that Google Play Store is a monopoly.

In both cases the determination of the relevant antitrust market was made after trial, so the different determinations wouldn't have been a reason why one case had a bench trial and one had a jury trial.

The judge in the Apple case could have determined that there was a relevant antitrust market based on a single brand - e.g., iOS app distribution. But after trial Judge Rogers determined that wasn't the relevant antitrust market. Such a determination is part findings of fact and part conclusions of law.

The jury in the Google case also could have determined that there was a relevant antitrust market based on a single brand, or it could have determined otherwise. After trial it determined that there were two such single-brand relevant antitrust markets. That isn't something the judge determined before trial. In theory he could have, but he didn't. It's possible that he will make such a determination after trial, i.e. that the evidence presented doesn't support such a determination.

I think some people are misunderstanding what's going on here, likely in part due to some misleading reporting that seems to all trace back to Wired.

I don't think Apple is going after or challenging Fruit Union Suisse's logo. If someone is aware of an action in which it is, I'd appreciate a pointer. It isn't even the iconic Apple logo (pictured in the OP) which is at issue here. This is about the Apple Corps logo which the Beatles used and which Apple acquired the rights to in 2007.

Apple, understandably, has filed for international trademark protections for a black and white version of that logo as used in various ways associated with music, videos, performances and recordings. Individual countries take their own actions with regard to such applications. They might grant protection, they might deny protection, they might grant protection only with regard to certain (of the asked for) uses. Switzerland apparently granted protection with regard to certain uses while denying it with regard to others. Apple has apparently appealed that partial denial.

To be clear, Apple isn't asking for trademark rights with regard to all images of Apples. This is about a particular image which has been used for half a century. Apple's attempts to protect that trademark also aren't new. It's sought and acquired protections, and sought to renew such protections, for well over a decade.

Fruit Union Suisse apparently opposes Apple's appeal. It doesn't want Apple to be granted protections in Switzerland for that trademark even though such protections would be limited to uses which wouldn't seem to overlap much with what Fruit Union Suisse does and, at any rate, its logo looks nothing like the trademark Apple seeks protections for. That's understandable I suppose; it's better from Fruit Union Suisse's perspective to keep future possibilities - in terms of different logos and different uses - open. But its apparent claims about what Apple is doing and the implications thereof seem a bit disingenuous to me.