Apple's former chief financial officer has reached a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for his role in backdating options, according to several reports. Without admitting wrongdoing, Fred Anderson will hand over $3.5 million in stock-option gains and pay a $150,000 penalty to the S.E.C.

The grants in Anderson's case were approved for Apple's executive members in February 2001 but were dated January 17, when the stock price was lower.

The S.E.C. is expected to file similar claims against Apple's former general counsel, Nancy Heinen. Her suit is expected to include allegations of backdating both her own options as well as those issued to Apple C.E.O. Steve Jobs.

Heinen's lawyers say she will fight such claims. "It's simply unfair to single out Nancy Heinen for enforcement action from among the thousands of executives in hundreds of companies all over this country who've been swept up in these stock-options cases," Miles Ehrlich, one of Heinen's lawyers, told the San Jose Mercury News. "Nancy didn't backdate stock options, and she didn't deceive anyone."

The San Francisco attorney general is pursuing the case separately. More than 200 companies are being targeted in civil or criminal investigations relating to backdating options.

Heinen resigned from Apple two months before the options probe was disclosed. Anderson left the company in 2004 to help start a private-equity firm, where he is currently managing director. The terms of his settlement do not prohibit him from serving as a corporate director.