Federal prosecutors might have ammunition for legal action against Apple with a probe into whether Apple forged documents to enrich executives, reports The Recorder on the Law.com site.

For the benefit of those who have been on mars for most of this year, backdating occurs when a company betrays shareholders and unethically makes its executives rich big time by changing the date at which their stock options were issued, in effect maximizing the increase between their issue price and the stock's latest price.

The apparent falsification of the documents would be critical if prosecutors were to launch any case against Apple because it would be regarded as intent. "When there are falsified documents, the government views them as an intent to defraud, because people generally don't falsify documents unless they're trying to make things different from reality," lawyer Keith Krakaur told The Recorder.

The report also says that Apple chief Steve Jobs has hired his own attorney to deal with the Securities and Exchange Commission and Justice Department.

Initially, the revelations hurt Apple with its shares falling by as much 6 per cent after the report came out, although they did recover. And predictably, analysts have hosed down the report's impact. "Any time you get the stock options probe mentioned, especially with rumors of falsifying documents, the hot money tends to shoot first and ask questions later," said Tim Biggam, Man Securities options strategist told Reuters.

Other analysts say the odds that Jobs was himself involved in the falsification of options grants are less than 5 per cent, reports The Street.com.

Handy reassurance for Apple investors because Jobs is the one who turned the company around by launching the extraordinarily successful iPod digital media players and revamping its line of Mac computers.