More Apple for the day

Michael De La Merced has an article in The New York Times about Apple and Einhorn:

In the battle between Apple and the hedge fund manager David Einhorn, score a point for the billionaire who is taking up the mantle of shareholder advocate.
A federal judge said that he was leaning toward Einhorn’s contention that Apple had violated securities regulations by bundling several shareholder proposals into one matter.
A lawsuit by Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital, filed this month in Federal District Court in Manhattan, argues that Apple improperly grouped a vote to eliminate the company’s ability to issue preferred stock at will with other initiatives that Einhorn supports.
While the judge overseeing the case, Richard J. Sullivan, did not immediately grant Einhorn’s request for a halt to the vote, he said that the facts of the case favored the investor’s interpretation. “I think success on the merits lies with Greenlight,” Judge Sullivan said at the end of a nearly two-hour hearing. Earlier in the hearing, he implied that he believed Securities and Exchange Commission rules prohibited the bundling of disparate shareholder initiatives. Spokesmen for Greenlight and Apple declined to comment after the hearing.
Though a small point in the skirmish between Apple and Einhorn, the judge’s comments may provide some ballast to the hedge fund manager’s call to other investors. Einhorn’s bigger goal is to persuade Apple to return some of its $137 billion cash trove to shareholders. He has asked Apple to issue preferred shares, which would pay out billions of dollars in dividends over time. His lawsuit revolves around the technology giant’s proposal to eliminate “blank check” preferred shares that the company can issue without a shareholder vote. He argues that the company improperly bundled the plan with two other corporate governance changes that he supports.
Apple has said that it will consider Einhorn’s request, but that it has no plans to amend the shareholder proposal.
Judge Sullivan is expected to decide within days whether to grant a preliminary injunction, given the 27 February cutoff for voting on Apple’s shareholder proposals.
A lawyer for Einhorn, Mitchell P. Hurley of the firm Akin Gump, argued during the hearing that his client would suffer “irreparable harm” if the vote were allowed to proceed, because he would be forced to vote against two matters he would ordinarily support. During questioning, however, Judge Sullivan expressed skepticism about the need to take immediate action.
A lawyer for Apple, George Riley of O’Melveny & Myers, said in court that, if shareholders approved the disputed initiative, the company would wait for the judge to rule before adopting the new measures in its corporate charter.
Judge Sullivan also questioned why Einhorn had waited so long to act. He filed suit on 6 February, over a month after Apple first disclosed its shareholder proxy.

Rico says the guy's a fucking billionaire; what's he complaining about? Not making more money?