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Anderson's lawyer, Jerome Roth, said that his client had been told by Jobs that the options dates had been approved by the company's board.

'He was told by Mr. Jobs that the Board had given its prior approval and the board would verify it,' Roth said in a statement. 'Fred relied on these statements by Mr. Jobs and from them concluded the grant was being properly handled.'

But according to Roth the board never gave the necessary prior approval 'contrary to what Anderson understood from Mr. Jobs, and from the board'.

Apple admitted last year that it had backdated stock options issued between 1997 and 2002 without including the legally mandated charge in its accounts, prompting an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Yesterday the US financial regulator issued formal charges against Anderson and another former Apple executive, Nancy Heinen.

'These two were responsible to make sure that the board and the company were following along, and they abdicated those responsibilities,' said Sahil Desai, the SEC staff attorney who led the investigation.

Anderson has agreed to pay back £3.5 million that he made from the backdated stocks without admitting any guilt. Heinen,

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Apple's former general counsel, denies any wrong doing. Like Anderson, she said the board was to blame.

'It is simply unfair to single out Nancy. Every action that Nancy took was fully understood and authorised by Apple's board of directors. Anyone in town who knows her will tell you Nancy Heinen's integrity is unimpeachable,' her attorney, Miles Ehrlich, said in a statement.

'To suggest that Ms. Heinen engaged in fraud is to misunderstand the facts of what happened' he said. 'Nancy did not backdate stock options, and she didn't deceive anyone either inside or outside the company.'

The SEC disagrees, saying that there were a number of times when Heinen acted without the board's say-so.

'The board, as they should, looked to general counsel for legal advice and she led them down this illegal path,' Desai said.

The SEC confirmed that it will not be taking any action against Apple, which co-operated with the investigation. However it did not rule out the possibility of filing charges against other executives, including Jobs. Apple's internal enquiry exonerated its CEO and last week a Silicon Valley newspaper's investigation concluded that he was unlikely to face charges.

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster believes that if the SEC believed it had a case against Jobs then it would have filed charges by now, though he accepted that some investors will be concerned by the suggestion that Jobs was Anderson's 'partner in crime'

Apple said that the SEC had endorsed the way in which Apple has acted.

'In the SEC statement, it said it would not bring charges against Apple based in part on its swift, extensive and extraordinary co-operation in the commission's investigation,' spokesman Steve Dowling said. 'I don't think they dole these words out lightly.'