The accuser, a pension fund linked to the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, said Apple in 2021 and 2022 handed out a whopping €86.2 million and €87.4 million to Cook and four other bigwigs by wrongly working out the value of performance-based stock awards. The accuser claimed its pay committee should have given out €72.1 million.

The pension fund's lawyers blamed the alleged blunder on the committee's dodgy calculation of the restricted stock unit's "fair values" at the time of the grants. They said it fooled shareholders voting on executive pay, known as "say-on-pay".

However, U.S. District Judge Jennifer Rochon disagreed, saying Apple explained its pay methods in detailed pay tables in its 2023 proxy statement "exactly", as securities laws and US Securities and Exchange Commission rules demand.

The Manhattan judge also found no evidence that Apple's board of directors did anything wrong in giving out pay and said the accuser did not give the board enough time to think about its complaints before suing.

Apple proxy filings show Cook's pay totalled about €92.1 million in 2021 and 2022, including more than €76.3 million of stock awards yearly. Cook's total pay dropped to €58.8 million for 2023.