"His health is a matter of private information, which the board may be in possession of but has no affirmative obligation to disclose," said G. William Speer, a lawyer at Bryan Cave in Atlanta.
Jobs, who founded Apple in 1979, is widely considered a visionary whose products have repeatedly allowed the company to reinvent itself and stay ahead of the competition. His importance to the company fuels the debates on how much information about his health is material for investors.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Friday, June 26, 2009 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 4 National Desk 1 inches; 31 words Type of Material: Correction
Steve Jobs: An article in Thursday's Business section about Apple Inc.'s disclosure of Chief Executive Steve Jobs' medical condition said Jobs founded Apple in 1979. Jobs founded the company in 1976.
"Steve is Apple," said Danielle Levitas, an analyst for industry research firm IDC. "The company was on the skids, and he came back to revive them. No doubt, if he were gone, it would be a different company. There aren't a whole lot of people out there like Steve Jobs."
Nor are there many companies whose fate seems so closely tied to that of a single person, said Stephen Davis, a corporate governance expert at Yale University's Millstein Center for Corporate Governance and Performance.
"Whether he's able to come back, in what capacity and when are all highly relevant to Apple's owners," Davis said. "We're in the middle of huge financial crisis that's been caused in part by huge failures of corporate governance. This is an age when you would hope corporations would get that shareholders need some pretty high-quality disclosure."
The Securities and Exchange Commission declined to comment on the situation.
The revelation of Jobs' illness riled critics because it comes on the heels of long-standing displeasure with Apple's secretive culture and what detractors say is its grudging disclosure of important issues.
"Across the board the company is tight-lipped and tends to hold information close to its vest," said Patrick McGurn, special counsel at RiskMetrics Group, a New York advisor to large investors on governance issues. "This isn't an isolated issue with Apple. It's a major concern at this point."
Apple agrees with Speer's view that Jobs' health is a private matter, and it has said almost nothing about it even after news of the liver transplant.
"Steve continues to look forward to returning to Apple at the end of June," reiterated Apple spokesman Steve Dowling.
He noted that the Tennessee doctors were "authorized" to release their statement late Tuesday about Jobs' condition, but declined to comment on whether Apple should have said more to investors.
Dowling also said none of the eight members of the board of directors would be available to comment. Former Vice President Al Gore and current and former chief executives of Google Inc., Genentech Inc. and Intuit Inc. declined to comment. Three other directors did not return calls.
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david.sarno@latimes.com
walter.hamilton@latimes.com
Staff writer Alex Pham contributed to this report.
