SEC sues Apple Car exec over securities rules at former employer

Ulrich Kranz, now a senior executive working on the Apple Car, and a former colleague have been sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for incidents at their previous car firm.

Kranz has a long history in the automotive industry, first with 30 years at BMW and now as a senior Apple executive reporting to Kevin Lynch. In between the two roles, he co-founded an electric vehicle startup named Canoo, which is where the securities rules were allegedly breached.

According to Bloomberg, Canoo CEO Kranz and CFO Paul Balciunas are being sued for providing unreasonable revenue projections. Kranz is also accused of misrepresenting his income.

These financial issues appear to have been presented to a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), which merged with Canoo in 2020. Canoo has previously agreed to pay an SEC fine of $1.5 million over the merger.

For this case, the SEC seeks fines to bar the two from serving as officers in public companies. This would not be good news for Apple, as Kranz is currently a senior executive at Apple.

Project Titan has had a problem holding on to leadership in recent years. One executive even left the Apple Car project after only six months on the job.

Neither Apple nor Balciunas's current employer Apex.AI has commented on the lawsuit.