"I'm watching CNBC to see how to handle this. Do you realize they all know what I know (you don't), and they totally ignore it." I'll agree. There is a black hole in media it is known as the editorial dept. Totally ignore it? Not hardly, it is conspicous by its absence, hence your statement "they all know what I know'. Of course, this is just my opinion.
This is extremely important. It is the tail end of the alledged Gradient/Rocker scheme. He will talk, now, about "all the people behind him." Securities lawyer Lerach departs firm LEAVES UNDER CLOUD; VALLEY SHEDS NO TEARS By Troy Wolverton Mercury News San Jose Mercury News Article Launched:06/01/2007 02:05:44 AM PDT Don't be surprised in coming days if you hear Silicon Valley executives breaking out into songs of joy. The source of their likely merriment? Reports that securities attorney Bill Lerach, 61, is leaving his San Diego firm. Lerach is surely one of the most controversial figures in the valley for the numerous securities lawsuits he's filed against technology firms. He was the primary force behind California Proposition 211, a 1996 ballot initiative that would have made it easier for shareholders to sue companies. It lost at the polls. But technology leaders formed the industry group TechNet in the 1990s partially out of a sense that they needed to push back against Lerach. "There will not be a lot of love lost in Silicon Valley for Bill Lerach," said Joseph Cotchett, whose Burlingame firm, Cotchett Pitre Simon & McCarthy, is a rival of Lerach's. Lerach's apparent departure comes as one of his former partners, who has been indicted by federal prosecutors, has reportedly agreed to cooperate with the government in a probe of kickbacks the firm allegedly made to clients. Lerach's former firm, Milberg Weiss, and two of its partners have been indicted in the investigation. Lerach has long been a foil for valley companies, first as a partner with Milberg Weiss, then after his departure to form his own San Diego-based firm, Lerach Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins. His reputation was built on his aggressive lawsuits charging stock manipulation. Valley companies frequently found themselves in his cross hairs, particularly during the technology boom in the 1990s and in the subsequent bust earlier this decade. "Clearly he sued a lot of us," said Floyd Kvamme, a partner emeritus at venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Expressing a common belief in the Valley, Kvamme, who was a founding director at TechNet, added, "He didn't have shareholders in mind. He looked for settlements that enriched the plaintiffs bar." Lerach had a reputation for being quick to file lawsuits. Under the securities laws in place prior to the mid-1990s, firms that filed a suit first often became the lead plaintiffs in a case, thus earning the lion's share of the fees. But the practice, which Lerach was better at than most, drew the ire of Valley companies in particular. As they were often competing in emerging markets, those companies often saw their earnings and stock prices fluctuate wildly. "Anytime a company in the valley experienced a significant enough shortfall in its stock price coupled with heavy trading volume, that was a recipe for getting sued, regardless of what the underlying merits turned out to be," said Meredith Landy, an attorney in Menlo Park who heads O'Melveny & Myers' litigation practice. "Undoubtedly there's some Schadenfreude on behalf of many Silicon Valley company officers and directors who have been sued," she added, using a German word that means enjoyment of others people's misfortunes. To be sure, Lerach's practices changed as the law changed. Securities law reforms in the 1990s raised the bar for such lawsuits and gave precedence to firms representing the biggest clients, not the first ones to file. Lerach's response was to cultivate relationships with big institutional investors such as pension funds. That paid off after the stock market crash and the corporate scandals earlier this decade, when Lerach led the charge on behalf of former Enron shareholders, recovering some $7.3 billion from defendants such as Enron's directors. "Obviously his tactics are viewed by some as oppressive, but he's an excellent lawyer and that's what people forget," Cotchett said. And valley companies shouldn't celebrate his departure for too long, legal experts say. Not only does his firm have plenty of capable lawyers, but so do many other rival firms. "It's easy for the valley to focus on Lerach, because he's so out front, but there's a whole lot of other people behind (him)," said Dale Barnes Jr., an attorney in San Francisco and co-chairman of Bingham McCutchen's securities litigation practice. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Staff Writers Scott Duke Harris and Nicole Wong contributed to this story. Contact Troy Wolverton at (408) 920-5021 or twolverton@mercurynews.com.
This is the Gore's counsel in the White House fight of 2000. He gets $1300 an hour. Think Rocker's worried? BOIES' FIRM JOINS FIGHT VS. OVERSTOCK Bloomberg June 15, 2007 -- Rocker Partners LLC, a New Jersey hedge fund, switched legal counsel and hired David Boies' law firm to defend it in an Overstock.com Inc. suit accusing it of attempting to drive down the company's share price. A California appeals court in May denied a motion to dismiss the suit, prompting Rocker to change law firms to Boies, Schiller & Flexner, of Armonk, N.Y., from Los Angeles' Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker, said Gavin Rooney, a New Jersey attorney who's remaining one of Rocker's lead lawyers. Research firm Gradient Analytics Inc. aided naked short sellers of Overstock.com's shares by issuing false and misleading reports on the company using information from Rocker, according to the 2005 complaint filed in California state court in San Francisco. The hedge fund also profited from shorting Overstock shares, according to the complaint. Overstock.com, a Salt Lake City Internet retailer, sued both Gradient and Rocker, accusing them of libel and unfair business practices. The research and hedge-fund firms deny wrongdoing and say the lawsuit is an attempt by Overstock.com to silence its critics.
Ya think?????????? They can struggle and fight all they want. No one was impressed with the SEC on Wednesday. This if fixin' to end ugly. What will happen next will cement W as absolutely the worst Prez in US History, and I voted for him twice. It didn't have to be this way. But it's the way it is.
Sure 560 days without settling his trades is just a fig newton of my imagination. Nothing could be wrong there, could it????
Discovery puts it all to rest. IMO, Patrick Byrne will not settle, with that "w/o admitting or denying guilt........." crap you see all that. I've only seen a couple of discovery's granted, and the scum always try to settle. There is one going on in Louisiana per Sedona. If they get trading records, it'll show every off shore account, all the backdoor stuff, and it is not defensible. Overstock did very well today, I do not own it. Maybe this is why. Overstock.com Applauds Favorable Appellate Rulings in Two Cases July 03, 2007: 06:53 PM EST SALT LAKE CITY, July 3 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Overstock.com, Inc. praised favorable appellate court rulings in two of its key cases: Overstock.com et al. v. Gradient Analytics et al. and Furnace Brook, LLC v Overstock.com. Commenting on these successes, Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne said, "It's been quite a week for us. Last Thursday, the California Court of Appeals rejected Rocker Partners' and Gradient Analytics' latest efforts to avoid trial; and yesterday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit denied a request for rehearing in an infringement case against us, dismissing all of the plaintiff's claims. We couldn't be more pleased." At the end of last week, in Overstock's case against Gradient Analytics and Rocker Partners, the California Court of Appeals denied Rocker and Gradient's Petition for re-hearing of the court's unanimous decision, upholding the trial court's 3-0 rejection of Rocker and Gradient's attempts at early dismissal. The decision cleared the way for the case to proceed to trial. Barring acceptance of an appeal to the California Supreme Court, the matter will now go back to the trial court for discovery and trial preparation. In the second decision, announced yesterday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Furnace Brook, LLC v Overstock.com, denied Furnace Brook's request for rehearing of the court's earlier denial of Furnace Brook's appeal, upholding in its entirety the lower court ruling granting Overstock summary judgment and dismissing all patent infringement claims against Overstock. Furnace Brook had filed suit against Overstock in New York in 2005, shortly after Overstock sued Furnace Brook in Utah for a declaratory judgment of non-infringement. Furnace Brook acquired US Patent No. 5,721,832 at a bankruptcy auction in 2003. The suits were filed after Overstock rejected Furnace Brook's demands that Overstock purchase a license to the disputed patent. "We applaud each of these rulings which, in the one case, seems to bring to an end spurious infringement claims against Overstock, and in the other, signals what we hope will be the end to the preliminary legal posturing, and the beginning of a serious effort to address the claims asserted in our complaint against the Rocker and Gradient defendants," said Byrne. About Overstock.com Overstock.com, Inc. is an online "closeout" retailer offering discount, brand-name merchandise for sale over the Internet. The company offers its customers an opportunity to shop for bargains conveniently, while offering its suppliers an alternative inventory liquidation distribution channel. Overstock.com, headquartered in Salt Lake City, is a publicly traded company listed on the NASDAQ Global Market System and can be found online at http://www.overstock.com. Overstock.com is a registered trademark of Overstock.com, Inc. This press release contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Such forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding the non-plausibility of additional legal challenges by Overstock's opponents, the future favorable result of any referenced litigation, as well as all such other risks as identified in our Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2006, and all our subsequent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which contain and identify important factors that could cause the actual results to differ materially from those contained in our projections or forward-looking statements.
This is a monumental event, and perhaps could explain the movement in the stock. I don't know if you know what you're looking at, but, "monumental" about describes it. Look at the SHO stocks today. These guys were the coup d grace; they'd show up after all the other stuff was done with some schmuck they paid off. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- July 10, 2007 Lawyer Pleads Guilty in Securities Case By THE NEW YORK TIMES David J. Bershad, a former partner in the law firm of Milberg Weiss & Bershad, has agreed to plead guilty to charges that he helped pay illegal kickbacks to plaintiffs in securities lawsuits, the United States Attorneyâs Office said today in a statement. Mr. Bershad and another partner, Steven G. Schulman, were indicted last year in Los Angeles along with the law firm, and accused of making more than $11 million in secret payments to individuals who served as plaintiffs in more than 150 lawsuits that earned the firm more than $216 million in fees. Mr. Schulman has left the firm; Mr. Bershad has taken a leave. Prosecutors said today in their statement that Mr. Bershad, 67, of Montclair, N.J., would also forfeit $7.75 million, pay a $250,000 fine and continue to cooperate in the case. He was expected to appear at a hearing in federal district court in Los Angeles later today. Mr. Bershad had been responsible for overseeing Milberg Weissâs finances and accounting. The guilty plea would be a break in a case that seemed to have stagnated in recent months. Prosecutors have been examining for almost seven years some of the tactics that had made the firm so powerful. It is unclear what Mr. Bershadâs decision to plead guilty would mean for a Milberg Weiss partner Melvyn I. Weiss, and for William S. Lerach, a former partner who left in 2004 to form a San Diego law firm. Although they were the main targets of the investigation, neither Mr. Weiss or Mr. Lerach, two of the most powerful securities class-action lawyers in the nation, have been indicted. In early June, Mr. Lerach reportedly was considering plans to leave the law firm he founded. A trial for Mr. Schulman is scheduled for January. In its statement, the Milberg Weiss firm said: âWe understand that David Bershad will plead guilty today to conspiracy to obstruct justice. Mr. Bershad had been on a leave of absence since May 2006 and his relationship with Milberg Weiss L.L.P. has been terminated.â The statement added that Mr. Bershadâs plea was not unexpected. âWe remain confident,â the statement said, âthat his actions will have no effect on the firmâs commitment to its clients and its ongoing work to protect public shareholders and consumers.â
Read Byrnes' comment below the article. It is superb, and if you connect the dots w/Bear, you'll see where we're headed. http://www.theconglomerate.org/2007/07/overstockcom-v-.html#comments