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Eyewitness Reports from the DC Hearing - SCO Trounced (Groklaw)
Groklaw is carrying a pair of reports from today's hearing in the SCO v. DaimlerChrysler case. All of SCO's charges got thrown out except one: whether DC should have responded in less than 30 days.
"What that means is SCO's action against DC is over in all meaningful senses. I can't believe they will wish to spend the money to litigate over something so trivial with no conceivable damages or useful relief, even if they were to prevail, and I doubt they could anyhow. Still, this is SCO, so we will have to wait and see." Lesson: if you get a "certification demand" from SCO, be sure to tell them to take a hike within the 30 day deadline.
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Eyewitness Reports from the DC Hearing - SCO Trounced (Groklaw) Posted Jul 21, 2004 21:11 UTC (Wed) by steven97 (guest, #2702) [Link] And what does the SCO stock do in the final trading hour...It goes up?!
Eyewitness Reports from the DC Hearing - SCO Trounced (Groklaw) Posted Jul 21, 2004 22:08 UTC (Wed) by allesfresser (subscriber, #216) [Link] That's not unusual... the tinfoil side of me says that people want to avoid the close being down disastrously, so they let the price drop during the day and then buy right before the close to bring it back up. But I could very well be wrong...
Eyewitness Reports from the DC Hearing - SCO Trounced (Groklaw) Posted Jul 21, 2004 23:07 UTC (Wed) by huffd (guest, #10382) [Link] Very interesting, do you put the shiny side on the outside?SCO is so close to the brink of disaster, this could be the one setback that puts the dominos in action. I seriously doubt if there will be a SCO as we know it in November 2005 for the trial, unless of course it's called M$N$CO..
Eyewitness Reports from the DC Hearing - SCO Trounced (Groklaw) Posted Jul 22, 2004 5:11 UTC (Thu) by allesfresser (subscriber, #216) [Link] *Both* sides of my tinfoil are shiny... ;-)
Eyewitness Reports from the DC Hearing - SCO Trounced (Groklaw) Posted Jul 22, 2004 15:58 UTC (Thu) by jachim (subscriber, #2963) [Link] Where do you get double-shiny tinfoil? Ever since Mirro quit making it, I've been unable to find any.
Eyewitness Reports from the DC Hearing - SCO Trounced (Groklaw) Posted Jul 23, 2004 2:36 UTC (Fri) by fLameDogg (guest, #11305) [Link] Don't ask. If he tells you, he has to kill you.
Eyewitness Reports from the DC Hearing - SCO Trounced (Groklaw) Posted Jul 21, 2004 23:46 UTC (Wed) by hans (subscriber, #148) [Link] So any bets as to when or if a class action lawsuit is filed on behalf of the SCO shareholders alleging that SCO management misrepresented its ownership of Linux? It just strikes me that there's blood in the water now, and more sharks will appear soon to try to get a bite or two of their own.
Eyewitness Reports from the DC Hearing - SCO Trounced (Groklaw) Posted Jul 22, 2004 12:01 UTC (Thu) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link] If you read a few earlier bits about the DC filings, I think it was PJ described David Stewart (the DC lawyer) in the nicest possible way as "a shark".The impression was left, very strongly, that he is a lawyer to be respected and feared. So if there is blood in the water, I think he must have the honour of "the shark who started it all" :-) Cheers,
Eyewitness Reports from the DC Hearing - SCO Trounced (Groklaw) Posted Jul 22, 2004 17:07 UTC (Thu) by allesfresser (subscriber, #216) [Link] Considering that SCO and its execs seem to control a large part of the company's stock, I'm not too sure that a class-action suit would get very far...
Shareholder Class Action Lawsuits Posted Jul 22, 2004 19:06 UTC (Thu) by AnswerGuy (subscriber, #1256) [Link] The fact that a majority of the stock is consolidated into a small number of insiders will not hamper a class action lawsuit by the minority shareholders.Anyone with standing can initiate the lawsuit and can recommend that it pertain to a whole class of litigants (thus making it a class action suit). It's not like the board of directors has to approve of it (in fact that would be absurd since the BoD is essentially the defendent of such a suit, or the board and the executive staff). Someone with an academic background in economics explained to me that the system of corporate governance used in the U.S. is primarily a way for a small number of people (the board and the executive staff) to control the investments of a large number of others (the stockholders). He explained that as little as 15% of the stock in a company in the hands of these people could effectively control the whole company to their exclusive benefit and the rest of the shareholders have effectively no say in the company. Apparently the main benefits to these companies accrue to the CEO, COO, chairman of the board, and president through options, salary, and "forgiven loans" (it's pretty common for a company to finance the aquisitions of homes and vehicles for the president or CEO and then write off the loan with nothing more than a footnote in their financial reports). Alot of the other benefits are arranged by "strategic partnerships" with other companies in interlocked boards. (That's where SCO buys useless trash from the Canopy group in lopsided deals that benefit Canopy and are to the detriment of SCO --- a deal that the majority of shareholders would have opposed but over which they have no say; they can only vote with their feet by selling off their interest in the newly devalued company). Apparently a large part of the genius of Warren Buffet is that he evaluates companies in terms of their fundamental governance. He simply won't buy a company that doesn't respect him as one of its OWNERS. He won't tolerate extravagant executive perks and compensation plans, and shenanigans. Anyway, a shareholder lawsuit against SCO would actually be a great idea. It's obvious that they aren't acting in the long term interests of their ownership (investors). At the same time I would question why anyone currently owns their stock. (It would be great if a judge in such a hypothetical case could say: "Case dismissed: it was obviously a litigation lottery and speculative purchase, there was diminishing value in this company when it aquired the SCO name, trademarks and licenses, no prospects for real appreciation of those assets and only an idiot would have "invested" in it.") I'm guessing that the majority of recently stock purchasers won't sue SCO until after it gets aquired by someone else. Suing them now would just tank the overtaxed legal team from their primary line of business (the IBM lawsuit and the prospects for eventually suing Linux users). Prevailing against SCO would just divvy up the last of their warchest; game over! Of course the risk of various lawsuits against SCO is a huge impediment to aquisition of their remaining (and still diminishing) assets. MS and Canopy group won't absorb them because it would just open them up for It would be more interesting for former and recent SCO shareholders to attempt suits against Microsoft/BayStar and the Canopy Group --- with the SCOG directors and executives named as co-defendants in a conspiracy to defraud the investors by leeching the residual assets of the company through unsound aquisitions and litigation. (Hmmm, they could try to use JimD
Eyewitness Reports from the DC Hearing - SCO Trounced (Groklaw) Posted Jul 22, 2004 16:48 UTC (Thu) by stock (subscriber, #5849) [Link] "WTF is this?" was George Tenet thinking :http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20040721122325926 : " Eyewitness Reports from the DC Hearing - SCO Trounced , UPDATE: [5:41 PM] , REPORT 1, from eggplant37: {......} " "how can those f..king hippies have a more efficient counter intelligence on groklaw as i ever had here in Langeley ?" Robert
Eyewitness Reports from the DC Hearing - SCO Trounced (Groklaw) Posted Jul 22, 2004 17:07 UTC (Thu) by TxtEdMacs (subscriber, #5983) [Link] I have been following the "value" of SCOX stock for a period of time and I have observed some very odd characteristics.SCO does not follow NASDAQ trends, with my seeing it going up when the exchange is down. Moreover, recently observing the trading by the hour a pattern I only partially took note of was a VERY late rise at the end of each trading day. One should remember that SCO was authorized to 'buy back' a significant percentage of its outstanding stock. Hence, I have begun to wonder if these late trades have a two fold purpose. Get the lowest price to conserve their remaining capital and buy a small chunk late to make the stock appear to not be as in as bad a shape as it might really be. Of course, this is speculation based on a continuing pattern where some parties are obviously trying to lessen the real scale of losses becoming readily apparent to the less sophisticated investor.
Late trades Posted Jul 22, 2004 18:10 UTC (Thu) by sreed (guest, #4006) [Link] From what I have read, a company is not allowed to buy back their own stock within the final 30 minutes of trading.Many of the stock price increases in the last few weeks (after SCOG announced the buy-back plan, anyway) have come during that last half hour. So, if SCOG is following the law, they are not the ones running up the price. I'd sure like to know who it is, and for what purpose, though. Sid
Late trades Posted Jul 22, 2004 20:48 UTC (Thu) by TxtEdMacs (subscriber, #5983) [Link] I did not know about the rule that forbids buy backs in the last half hour of trading, hence, assuming SCOX is following the rules they should not be the ones affecting the trading.I do not fully understand how an option works other than one is taking a bet that at the end of a period one has taken a position that the value of a stock will have either risen or fallen from a set level. Up until the option closing time, I was under the impression that those holding a given position borrowed stock or cash to sell or buy, respectively to support their bet. At the option closing, they had to settle with their debts incurred by their borrowings and either collect the difference as their profit or come up with the additional assets if it went in the opposite direction. I would think that the option holder could not chose the timing of their trades to be most advantageous their option positions - but that would be a group of investors that would have an interest in skewing the market pricing on a given stock.
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