Apple Settles Shareholder Suit on Cook Comments

Let’s talk about something other than TikTok. How about the fact that Apple has agreed to pay $490 million to settle a years-old shareholder lawsuit alleging that CEO Tim Cook misled investors in comments he made on an earnings call in late 2018? It’s not every day you see the iPhone maker settling a lawsuit rather than fighting to the bitter end, as Fortnite maker Epic Games has found with its long-running case. Indeed, Apple has spent the past few years trying to get this shareholder case thrown out of court, unsuccessfully.

Apple denies doing anything wrong. It settled to avoid further “protracted, overly burdensome, expensive and distracting” litigation, according to a court filing on Friday. Perhaps Apple is being a little coy about the real reasons. It’s hard to believe continuing to fight the case would cost more than the settlement amount, so expense can’t be the issue. (Not that the settlement is a financial burden for Apple anyway—its business generates that amount every day and a half or so.) The real incentive to settle may have been that a trial date of Sept. 9 was set a couple of weeks ago, according to the court docket. You have to imagine Apple didn’t want Cook put on the stand to explain his statements on an earnings call that turned out to be far from accurate.