An Apple executive has been sentenced to a year in prison for crimes involving kickbacks from Apple suppliers, according to a Business Insider article by Jim Edwards. As originally reported on 9to5Mac, Paul Shim Devine, a former supply manager for Apple, was feeding sensitive information regarding forthcoming Apple products to a Asian components suppliers, who paid him about a million dollars, all told. They then used that information to their advantage in negotiations with the company.Edwards speculates that Mr. Devine may have been cooperating with US authorities in exposing further wrongdoing on the part of other Apple suppliers, given that his sentencing is pretty light relative to the maximum of 20 years’ prison time that he could have faced. Edwards also notes that Apple hates leaks and once required its sapphire glass supplier to agree to pay a $50 million fine in the event of a leak to the press.
Incidentally, that supplier, GT Advanced Technologies, suffered a major collapse after Apple abruptly dropped it earlier this year, opting for a different supplier as it prepared its new TouchID-enabled mobile devices.
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