Apple last week formally exonerated Steve Jobs of any wrongdoing over the options backdating scandal. But the questions linger.

Apple's 10K report to the Securities and Exchange Commission did its best to get Jobs off the hook but a close reading of it would suggest the company, and Jobs, are not out of the woods yet.

This time, the report says Jobs "was aware or recommended the selection of some favorable grant dates". Now, that suggests that Jobs was more actively involved than we were first led to believe. But it makes the disclaimer that "he did not receive or financially benefit from these grants or appreciate the accounting implications".

As the Financial Times editorial notes, the way Apple has handled this entire sordid affair leaves a lot to be desired:

"The get-out clause is that Mr Jobs did not know that his own grant had been backdated. This casts a better light on his behaviour than if he had rewarded himself by amending options, but it leaves questions unanswered. Why, for example, was none of Apple's directors aware that a board meeting had been made up? At the least, it suggests that they do not read the board minutes very carefully.

"It also makes Apple's October statement seem disingenuous. The company's options practices are being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission and it was making a closely watched statement to investors. So it might have found room in its summary of the 'key points' for Mr Jobs' own backdated grant and that he had recommended some backdating."

Some analysts say those questions will not go away, despite Apple's ham-fisted attempts to draw a line in the sand.

"The company is desperately trying to make us believe that just because [Jobs] wasn't self-dealing directly and because they've come clean and done a thorough investigation, that this is OK. The problem is that it might not be. We don't know how the SEC or other authorities are going to react to these disclosures," Christopher Whalen, managing director of Institutional Risk Analytics told the Los Angeles Times

Or as Lynn E Turner, the former chief accountant with the SEC told the New York Times: "It appears as if Jobs is playing the role of a monkey: See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. If he truly were fulfilling his role as C.E.O., it is highly questionable as to why he didn't know about such poor management and oversight of the option granting process."

Putting the blame on two former executives, Fred Anderson and Nancy Heinen, is not going to help either and their attorneys have told the Wall Street Journal the pair have done nothing wrong. Which suggests that they're not going to lie down and take it quietly.

But the most scathing attack comes from Professor Larry Ribstein's Ideoblog:

"Just to summarize the emerging blackletter law: It's ok to commit "fraud" (which is what we are repeatedly told backdating is) if (1) you are a media darling who produces fancy products that everybody loves; (2) you can get Al Gore to sign off (I guess this particular truth isn't too inconvenient); and (3) you can get somebody else in your company to do the dirty work.

"There's also an anecdote here about actual effect of backdating on companies: Apple's stock sank 5% after it looked like Job's job might be on the line, but then rose the same amount when the board committee made it clear he wasn't going to be fired. Does this mean that the market doesn't care about the fraud, but just about the governance turmoil the media frenzy wreaks on companies?"

Actually, it's more about the market knowing that Apple's value to investors depends on Steve Jobs keeping his job!

True, that makes Apple quite unique. The downside is that it leaves the company in a precarious position.