I don't think anybody's saying that employees were wronged by options backdating. It's fine for companies to award options to different employees at a uniform s

I don't think anybody's saying that employees were wronged by options backdating. It's fine for companies to award options to different employees at a uniform strike price out of a concern for fairness. In broad terms, companies can compensate their employees mostly however they like. But whatever compensation a company awards, they have to account for it and in some cases truthfully disclose it. It matters when the employee gains the ability to exercise the option; awarding an at-the-money option isn't the same as an in-the-money option (and wasn't in those days). Lots of companies were doing this; in Apple's case, they falsified the minutes of their Board of Directors to invent a special meeting so they could pretend they had compensated Steve Jobs (and others) differently. (https://www.theguardian.com/business/2006/dec/30/citynews.news https://www.theguardian.com/business/2006/dec/30/citynews.ne...)