Slashdot Mirror
Class Action Lawsuit Against VA
Yahoo has a story up now about
a class action Lawsuit against VA, which is my employer, and owns Slashdot, so
of course I'm biased blah blah. Of course, I have no clue about any of
the stuff in the article because it's about stock allocation by
Credit Suisse during the IPO, and that sort of stuff is way outside
the realm of things I have any understanding of. Update: 01/11 09:58 PM by H : The Milberg people have a website with more info and PDFs about it -- and I just tried VA, who have "categorically no comment."
http://www.redhat.com/legal/legal_statement.html
Every time I see stories about VA, I always read them as something like "Class Action Lawsuit Against Virginia". I bet you're glad that slashdot is not owned by the Commonwealth of Virginia, so act like it!
and VA Linux gets shut down.
Does slashdot have a backup plan? I really hope that if VA goes, slashdot will still somehow survive.
I assume some kind-hearted-soul would be able to provide slashdot with ample hosting?
yikes.
no
Look at it this way: Would you want to be a corporate director if you knew that you personally could be bankrupted by any two-bit shyster looking to make a fast buck off the slightest misstep the company makes, or even events in the market that have nothing whatsoever to do with the company's performance? 211 would basically have taped a giant "kick me" sign to the back of every corporate director in California, which would include a large portion of the Silicon Valley VCs...and for no other purpose than lining the pockets of Lerach and his ilk.
If lawyers didn't already have a bad name, Lerach could single-handedly give them all one.
Eric
--
Be who you are...and be it in style!
What the persons at this law firm are probably not aware of is the role that VA has taken for us all as a community. NO COMPANY has taken a larger or more active role in building, supporting and caring for members of the Linux and open source universe. Just think of the tools provided to us FREE via Source Forge alone. Let us remember how that IPO they are complaining about, was about as open to the community as it could possibly be. Again, I could go on for a couple hours here about all the cool stuff and good deeds done by that team of Uber Geeks.
Every person in the Linux community owes many debts to VA, even if you are not aware of them. And, along with other leaders of this community, every person in this nation owes a debt to Larry for what the leaders of this community have done for the IT world. Larry was a big part of that community team, that community effort that has helped stop the total dominance of IT by Microsoft & Sun.
This Guy and This company are class acts.
Lets start repaying the debt owed by being calm and letting VA's legal team get in place and do their job. This is the US folks. Innocent until PROVEN guilty and all that stuff. If indeed some person at Credit Suisse has made some side deal it should be prosecuted. But, I have no fear that VA with persevere and come out clean.
'Motors' is the largest part of the name.
One of the company's biggest focus is on motors.
So shall we henceforth refer to them as 'Motors'?
The answer is, NO, dumbass.
See you in hell,
Bill Fuckin' Gates®.
See you in hell,
Bill Fuckin' Gates®.
(This post is ©2001 Microsoft(TM) Corporation.)
In most cases, whenever a large sum of stock is given away by a company, whether it be IPO offerings or a purchase of another company, the receiver of the stock must sign an agreement stating that he won't sell the stock before a certain amount of time has passed. This is intended to prevent massive sell-offs of stock by numerous employees and to help keep the value of the stock up. In all reality, Taco was probably never rich, he just had a piece of paper from VA telling him he was.
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
If an ethical law firm were involved, that would be a different story.
sulli
RTFJ.
It sounds more like the suit should be against Credit Suisee, not VA, unless they were colluding somehow.
There are a slew of lawyers that make a great deal of money friviously suing claiming securities violations.
Many of the companies I own stock in are being sued likewise (Corel, Plug Power, and Citrix).
Although these suits are without merit, they hurt the companies stock prices dramtically: look at each of the above company's history, and see the biggest dip the day after the suit starts (none have recovered).
Often, these suits end if the company can pay the lawyers enough money to "end the suit without predjudice", meaning, the shareholders can continue the suit (if they want), but the lawyers got their money and will run.
There was an article in Forbes a few months back detailing one lawyer who does busines this way (worth over $10B).
The companies and the shareholders (including the plaintifs) will all loose a great deal of money over these suits. The only winners (ever) are the lawyers.
That's why they do it.
When I die, please cast my ashes upon Bill Gates -- for once, make him clean up after me!
not only are they suing VA they are also suing Coke. I hate these people.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
--
Linux user since early January 1992.
Oh, come on. The reason why K5 isn't trolled as much as Slashdot is because it's a smaller community. People only troll when they know that enough people will read their comments, get offended, and take their bait. The community here does not tolerate troll comments, and moderates them down accordingly.
Any community that is sufficiently small and concentrated will not be affected by trolls. Look at some of the smaller Slash-like sites and mailing lists for some examples. As sites grow, like the Palm-centric Palmstation, more protective measures have to be instituted to make sure that the trolls don't overtake the site. Hell, it even happened to K5 a few months ago.
For more information, click here.
I went to check, here it is so you don't have to...
VA Linux Systems
today's high 9.50________previous close 8.09
today's low 7.87_________bid 8.50
today's open 8.00________ask 9.00
volume 2,034,900________earnings per share -1.92
52-week high 207.75_____dividend per share Not Avail.
52-week low 6.62_________dividend pay date Not Avail.
P/E ratio Not Avail._____ex-dividend date Not Avail
I posted what I consider a well reasoned, plausible scenario, which is largely evidenced by the facts surrounding the story.
It should not have been considered flaimbait - I had to point out that there is another perspective to this story which has apparently escaped a lot of people.
Instead of just rating it down, how about actually attempting to rationally argue the points I've made? Can you?
This Cisco exec should then be sued by the shareholders of Cisco for not making a business decision with solely the interests of Cisco the company and its shareholder value in mind. If someone is employed/appointed to the board of a company it is their responsibility to act solely in their interests with respect to his/her authority in the company.
I wouldn't blame the IPO company for offering the bribe.
Mmmm.. Donuts
MW is just a bunch of bloodsucking dorksmokers who abuse the class action lawsuit for their own gain. They love the fact that they can sue people and organizations based on the perception that the people/organizations being sued have done wrong. "Well, the stock price went down, so we want you to pay our clients for their loss (read: pay 1,000,000 people $100 each so we can take a 30% commission on $100,000,000).
Are you a complete idiot?
If this was a story about Microsoft fixing licensing fees you would be screaming bloody murder.
This suit is about Credit Suisse, a large investment bank, making illegal backend deals to sell stock which was supposed to be offered PUBLICLY to large customers at preferred prices.
The fact that some idiots moderated you up to 5 is even more frightening. Just because a company sells Linux-based software doesn't make it as clean as the wind-driven snow!
I think it is time for trolls like you to just go away and crawl back under the rock that you came from.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
Um, no. Thanks to the Prop 211 fiasco, I had contempt for Lerach and his cohorts years before I had even heard of VA Linux, and while I was still working as a Windows programmer.
Yes, if someone profited illicitly from the VA Linux IPO, those people should be held accountable for their actions. But the mere fact that Lerach, and/or his firm, are involved with this lawsuit, viewed in light of their prior track record, strongly suggests that their motives are, shall we say, not entirely in line with those of their "clients." (Look it up for yourself; I dug up those three links I posted in my previous posting in about two minutes by searching on Google for "Bill Lerach." There's more where those came from. A lot of people hate this guy's guts, including people that could give a rat's ass about Linux.)
Eric
--
Be who you are...and be it in style!
Yea, and in a similar paper about Blizzard Entertainment ("Entertainment") and Electronic Arts ("Electronic") or ("Arts") and Broterbund Software ("Software"), they could sue Electronic, Software, and Entertainment. Is this stupid, or lame?
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
...may or may not be guilty of unfairly supporting the trial lawyers. But one thing we do know is that the following statement is false:
However, President Clinton has pushed hard against every kind of tort reform effort.
The real problem with tort reform is similar to the problem with campaign-finance reform. Everybody knows something should be done, but the only people making proposals are those with a strong interest in an unfair system: Republicans and Democrats in the case of campaign-finance reform; insurance companies and lawyers in the case of tort reform.
The impasse has been broken on campaign-finance reform by an alliance between a Republican and a Democrat (McCain-Feingold) which addresses the problem without biasing the solution one way or the other. What we need is a similar kind of alliance or an independent group attacking the problem in the area of tort reform.
What it comes down to is this. The insurance companies define tort reform as: "You can't sue our clients. And, if you do, you can only ask for a small amount of money." And the lawyers define it as Prop 219 (or whatever it was that was defeated out in California).
Politicians (like Clinton) don't mind this because they can point out to voters the problems with whatever "solution" they are forced to take a position on and say they would support a reasonable solution. Since no reasonable middle-ground solution has been passed, we cannot know if this is true or not. "Support of reasonable reform" is what Clinton has said is his position (not "I will push hard against every kind of tort reform"). We don't know if he really means this because he has never been forced to take a position on real reform.
The weird thing about this one is that everybody knows what the real solution is (most countries have a version of it): Distinguish clearly in law between lawsuits which are not successful but are not frivolous and lawsuits which are totally without merit and frivolous; and then institute severe penalties for the latter without restricting the former.
This is not necessarily an easy distinction to make. But it is a distinction which already exists in U.S. law (it merely needs a clearer definition and stronger sanctions against the frivolous side of the distinction). And it has proven worthwhile everywhere it has been tried. Everywhere the insurance industry's version of "reform" has been tried it has hurt many people who were not abusers of the system.
BTW, be careful about repeating insurance-industry propaganda (like "Clinton is against all reform"). Early in my career as a journalist, I was taken in by an industry press release which had some great anecdotes about lawsuits, which I used in a story on the subject. I later learned that nearly every one of those stories contained deliberate lies about the actual facts. It is very easy to become a pawn of these people who are very effective at pushing hard for their own interests by convincing you they are working for your interests.
None of this should be taken in any way as supporting the lawsuit against VA Linux. It is a false dichotomy which the insurance industry likes to promote that you cannot oppose these frivolous lawsuits without destroying any right of individuals to seek redress in the courts.
Eternal vigilance only works if you look in every direction.
Sounds like that POS Everything2.com... The Slashdot moderation system is perfect. I do like the idea of readers voting on the queue.
Get my free Hitchhiker's Guide Tribute Novella:
The press release abbreviates "VA Linux Systems" as "Linux" instead of "VA" or "VA Linux." This helps to create a negative impression in people's minds of Linux-based operating systems (such as GNU/Linux and Embedix). Seeing as Linux is Microsoft's Public Enemy Number 1, does anybody smell foul play?
Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them?
Will I retire or break 10K?
I don't know if you've noticed, but law firms still keep most of their stuff on paper. I can't think of any lawyer I've seen with a laptop instead of a fold out desk briefcase.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I like how the lawyers allowed VA Linux to be referred to as only "Linux".
In connection therewith, Linux filed a registration statement, which incorporated a prospectus (the ``Prospectus''), with the SEC.
That damned dentist just won't quit... First the crypt now VA Finux!
"Survival of the fittest Max, and we've got the fucking gun!" - Pi
for those wondering what this is about, this story never made slashdot the other day even though it was submitted by many people. check it out, then decide for yourself. Zdnet story
11. VA Linux stock loses 95% of its value
I love the omission... how about 10.A. market nose dives.
In any case, after the crazy way the nasdac has been behaving it should be blatently obvious that stock prices have no basis in reality. For an extended period of time it has been simply an excercise in mob mentality. Everybody's been hit large and small. So you're going to grow by 4%, not 5%, this year. We'll all get out here's a 20% cut in your stock price? VA can't control its shareholders overreaction to its statements, or the general market skitishnes.
This has everything to do with dumb investors and nothing to do with companies. You shouldn't get into the market unless you do the research... and even then, these days the research sometimes isn't worth a damn.
--locust
the act of agreeing to sell at a later date at a fixed price was what I've always understood as the loophole many IPO people use to get rich fast off of the IPO... is this just an example of VA geting caught for what millions have done before them?
I post links to stuff here
Shouldn't all moderators be browsing at "oldest first" so they will know what comments to mark as (-1, Redundant)?
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
Nah. Redundant isn't as important to weed out as the shitloads of idiot spams and trolls. I'd much rather read two well-written messages addressing the same point, than fifty poorly-written messages that contain no useful content at all. IMO, YMMV. Do feel free to steal the sig and use it to promote your view.
--
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
I would love to see somebody point that out to Milberg et al. Preferably the trademark holder himself.
I don't know anything about the merits of this case, but their redefinition of the word "linux," and the ignorance that that mistake demonstrates, really bugged me.
MSK
>most companies that drop that far are usually hit by lawsuits from shark's masquearading as lawyers and it's actually a surprise that it took this long.
Back in the 1980s I insisted that my busness (it went under in 1992) NEVER take on an investor...
I've been questioned as to why... obveously I could have used the help.. But from 1983 to 1992 I made my position clear...
I felt that invesntment was a real catch 22...
If you don't produce quick returns your investors will try to grab the wheel or otherwise mess over the busness...
If you do produce quick returns you didn't need the investors to begin with...
There are rare occasions where investors are an asset but usually they are a problem...
[When you need money today to lock in larg proffits tomarow... It's been known to happen... One example is a company who produces equipment.. the demand outstrips the supply.. solution is invest in larg scale mass production... This will probably mean investors sence the small company is unlikely to have that kind of money on hand when the crisis hits...]
Some investors are babys and sadly the biggest babys have the biggest budgets...
If someone believes they know more about your busness than you do the last thing you need is to have that person as an investor...
Investors have every right to say what is going on (They invested the cash) however some quickly forget who is doing the daily work and try to play puppet master...
I guess what I'm saying is... the problem investor is one in a million... and you have a potental 20 million investors.... and it only takes one to sue you into oblivion....
I don't actually exist.
1. CmdrTaco admitting he is bies..
2. A link to an oposing view with out first in some way slamming same...
3. Anything showing a weakness in any Linux or Slashdot affiliated companys..
No thies things will never be seen on Slashdot... Never... ever.. umm what?
I don't actually exist.
OK, so I read the complaint. Here's my understanding of it (which surely some people will later refine/correct)
1.) the prospectus for LNUX claimed that Credit Suisse would get 'n' shares
2.) Credit Suisse actually procured 'n+x' shares.
3.) Credit Suisse then made backroom deals with big Credit Suisse customers to sell them the stock at "better than market, but still not IPO price", in exchange for increased commissions.
4.) This "forced inflation" of the price, caused others to have to pay higher-than-fair value for the stock.
The plaintiffs appear to contend that the offering was illegal because (a) they lied on their prospectus (points 1 and 2 above), and (b) people paid artificially increased prices for the shares (points 3 and 4 above).
Basically. That's certainly not definitive legalese, but its how this untrained guy (who happens to enjoy reading/understanding court documents) would read it.
D
5. VA uses Slashdot to bolster that perception by the public
8. Slashdot founders get millions.
Except that VA bought Andover (Slashdot's parent company) _after_ the ipo.
also it's worthwhile to point out that none of what you said had anything to do with the lawsuit except:
12. The shareholders get pissed off
If you want the real reason for the lawsuit read the article.
Good point, but from a consumer standpoint, I noticed little effort on the part of Toshiba to seek class members. I imagine they payed out quite a bit, but it was probably dwarfed by the payment to the lawyers. Personally, I don't see how Toshiba could even be held accountable for this if it WAS a quasi-major issue. They released a software fix, what else do you want? On the other hand, this could have set a major precedent for buggy software/hardware had it gone to court and succeeded (which would have had a good chance in Beaumont, TX). I hate incomplete software as much as the next guy, but Monolith shouldn't be sued because Blood II has more bugs than any game ever :)
I only got a $200 toshiba card (good for overpriced items at their store) because the laptop was aging (486 sattelite or the like). I did refer the case to someone else who had a new laptop and was eligable for the full 435 dollar settlement though. Come to think of it, I should've asked for a finder's fee.
Even though CS did the dirty work, this involves VA Linux because it's VA Linux who writes the conditions of the IPO deal.
The "nice" thing about securities fraud actions is that *everyone* can get sued, from the issuer (VA Linux, in this case) to the lawyers, accountants, and of course underwriters. In any case, though, it's the issuer that has the most responsibility in a stock offering, so naturally VA Linux is a defendant when there's something wrong.
One thing to note: VA Linux's counsel has defended more class action securities suits than any other firm in the nation, so you could say they're pretty well-defended.
Yeeks Please, turn off the bold or I'm going to file a class action suit against you, on behalf of Slashdot readers everywhere.
--
I'm not against lawsuits in theory either. It is just way out of hand. When you get in an accident, odds are that a lawyer will show up before the ambulence. It's to the point where you're guaranteed to lose money if you don't sue or capitolize on class action when you get the chance. Good point on wealth distribution - but I don't want my wealth being redistributed to pay for a lawyer's yacht. With every step of wealth distribution until the benefits return to you, valuable natural resources are wasted (building the yacht, power for the computer, dew for the nerds). To say that I'm somehow aiding the development of a socialist state by getting sued into oblivion is going a bit far :)
Dude, this is /. Don't read the article before posting a follow-up, or you'll be rational again like this.
None of this was probably known or imagined by VA. I suspect that if the "net stocks" had not crashed and burned, nobody would care. As it is, there is a lively "cottage industry" of lawyers such as the ones filing the case who will invent a class and file an action on pretty much anything after a stock's price has fallen. At the minimum, they expect to extort their legal fees from the company that they are filing against. The members of the class that they represent (please read invent) will get little or nothing. If they take all the time to file the papers necessary to claim their award, they will not make minimum wage. In the meantime, the law firm compensates itself with the majority of the moneies awarded.
<rant>
This practice by legal firms such as this represents perhaps the lowest in the legal profession. While they will tell you with a straight face that they are "representing the little guy", they are in truth only representing themselves.
disclosure: I own no VA stock
</rant>
I am not a Lawyer, but here's what I think:
After reading the complaint, it seems that VA is not really at fault for the "Friends and Family" program, but rather Credit Suisse was. CS seems to have taken excessively large comissions from buyers before the IPO, to be sure that they got shares. I take this to mean that the buyers paid more than $30/share, and VA still only received $27.90/share.
In my opinion it seems that Credit Suisse is responsible for the illegal action here. Putting VA and their CEO & CFO as defendants seems more like a publicity smear tactic you would expect only days after M$ announces Linux as their top threat.
Like I said, I am no Lawyer, but that's what I see here.
--John
no it's not resonable. You should choose a term that relatively clearly & uniquely refers to the company in question the term Linux clearly & uniquely refers to something else...
More importantly, how dare they refer to VA as "Linux", repeatedly throughout the document. Linus' lawyer should sue them for trademark infringement!
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
You are not biased because you are employed by VA, you have an incentive to be biased, which you have quite rightly informed us of.
If you had to choose short hand for "VA Linux", would you use:
a) Linux = 5 letters
b) VA = 2 letters
c) I'm illiterate.
"I can't buy want I want because it's free. Can't be what they want because I'm me." -Corduroy, Pearl Jam
Wait a minute! I was looking forward to watching a lawyer cross-examine a stack of CDs. Or, perhaps someone will slap together a box using Festival to pipe an Eliza program quoting from fortune-mod to respond to questions:
"Mr. Linux, what can you tell me of the conversation that took place in the VA Linux Systems boardroom on August 28, 1999 at 1500?"
"Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society. --Mark Twain"
"Mr. Linux, may I remind you that this is a court of law?"
"Old musicians never die, they just decompose."
"And just what do you mean by that remark?"
"Q: What do you call a blind, deaf-mute, quadraplegic Virginian? A: Trustworthy."
And so forth, into the night...
--
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
I don't speak legalese, so can someone please put into plain english what exactly is going on here?
Thanks!
A more likely scenario, from another perspective:
1. VA Linux notices hot market for IPO's
2. VA sees lots of others making huge money from stock offerings
3. VA promotes Linux as 'next big thing'
4. VA associates itself with being the bringer of Linux
5. VA uses Slashdot to bolster that perception by the public
6. VA misleads people into thinking that they actually can provide real value, and be a profitable company.
7. Unwitting investors believe this, and buy the stock.
8. Slashdot founders get millions.
9. VA insiders cash out their options, reaping millions of their own (along with the VC's)
(The CEO, Larry Augustin, made off with $10 Million of stockholder money)
10. VA Linux stock crashes, as they have no possible way of justifying the market cap.
11. VA Linux stock loses 95% of its value
12. The shareholders get pissed off
13. Lawyers find a way for some people to recoup their losses
14. The people who lost money eagerly go after VA.
Folks, do you have ANY idea how much money the VA insiders walked away with? Do you have any idea on WHOSE money that really was? Do you really think that the VA insiders actually earned it, or did they con the public into thinking there was real value?
If you con someone, is it the fault of the con-man, or the fault of the 'idiot', as you say?
This story is repeated every day with different companies. This may be flaimbait, but I think it is about time that company founders start accepting the consequences of misleading a gullible public.
[For the record, I never bought or sold a single share of stock in my life. I just watch with disgust, usually, at the behaviour of these hype-stock companies]
Bastards! How dare they sue anyone or anything affiliated, much less owning, Slashdot!!!
Is their a company that haven't been sued yet? All the profit that this companies make goes in the pockets of lawyers. People even get sued for exercicing their right of free speach.
When you are suing someone you usually want to be specific about what you are suing them for. Any good lawyer knows that. You research, study and get all the dirt on something before you sue.
They haven't done their homework and thats why people are pissed that they are associating totally two different things (company/kernel). This shouldn't be done; however I don't think we'll hear much from Linus Torvalds on the topic. Worst comes to worst the matter will be cleared up in court. Whether it be with a counter suit from Linux claiming that the software/kernel are too different things and that as a result an estimated "number here" was loss.
That's what happens when you are greedy and don't know what you are talking about.
Lawyers are ruling this world-- with their greedy little minds and eyes. lets kill all the lawyers!
Go see ramdac
Looks like there were some shady dealings going on with the IPO. No matter how much I like VA Linux, there's no excuse for this, and no company should be allowed to get away with it. Here's hoping they learn a hard lesson.
--
Darn here-one-minute, gone-the-next search page.
The main thrust of the Plaintiff's charge is that VA Linux and its underwriters sold IPO positions to certain people pre-IPO. In turn, these people dumped their relatively cheap shares resulting in many smaller investors left holding the bag. Link
Is this strictly illegal (it certainly seems a little unethical)? Does it happen frequently?
Have I missed the whole point of the suit, IANAL after all.
Dancin Santa
I wonder if the lawyers shortened VA Linux Systems, Inc. to "Linux" for a reason (VA Linux Systems, Inc. (``Linux'' or the ``Company''...)) or if the lawyer is just clueless. Wouldn't "VA" have been a better abbreviation? It's more concise and accurate.
Could Linus sue the lawyers for Trademark Infringement(TM)?
If you can read this, then I forgot to check "Post Anonymously".
It's a cop-out to blame the 'market conditions' in general, and unfair to put all the blame on the individual investors. I'll allow them a bit of the blame for being gullible, but the companies were at fault. You don't blame the shill for the game of the con-man.
I will agree that many investors were eagerly willing to play the game, but they were not doing so while being fully informed, and the companies had no trouble with allowing them to be mislead, at least until they cashed out their shares.
What do you think created this market nose-dive?? Hundreds of pumped-up, overvalued companies, and people finally realizing that there is no way these companies can sustain their market cap. Blaming 'the market' for the crash of these companies is a play on words - the companies themselves make up 'the market'. It's their own fault, and they're the ones to ultimately blame.
The companies prayed on the dumb investors, and I think most of them knew full well what they were doing. All they had to do was rationalize it a bit, and go shear the sheep. Thankfully, that's about over now, and people can get back to reality (despite many company's best attempts..)
I don't get what's wrong with you people! This is a workaday lawsuit, commonplace even. Both points of view obviosly have legitimate points-of-view, or the Judge would not hear the case~! Look at it this way: if it came to light that the VALinux people were screwing around with the numbers maliciously, the SEC would step in... But if the VALinux mba's and ca's were simply incompetent, attorneys like Lerach are your only recourse.
You people are clearly letting your emotions about 'linux' guide your contempt for lerach & his cohorts... It looks like the IPO was handled ineptly, and even if there is the slightest chance that gross, incotrovertable negligence is to blame for that, you need to have the situation examined and arbitrated. that is what Tort is all about. And if it turns up that the good ol boys at valinux did make mistakes, somebody somewhere has to pay the piper. WHO BETTER than the dorks that screwed this particular pooch of an IPO? who better to pay up than the party that profitted from the IPO? What? You have NO answer to that? So very fscking good of you to consider the situation before spouting off!!!
Letting your 'feelings' for Linux and/or this particular corporation guide your opinion of this lawsuit is not rational- BY DEFINITION. Do any of you 3117 455 industry analysts and armchair attorneys consider yourselves irrational? NO! You all pride yourselves on your rationality. So wtf are you guys spouting about?
At no point are any of the plaintiffs here being dishonest or malicious. They are fully justified in their minds, and aren't afraid to say it. I'll leave you with this quote from Lerach to chew on. and next time, have some fscking perspective before spewing such uninformed cynicism!
"Like the anti-trust bureaucrats who attack free enterprise in the name of free markets, Lerach defends his aggressive filing of lawsuits as necessary to police private markets. Says Lerach, "Private enforcement of the law, guided by the profit motive, overseen by an independent federal judiciary, working within laws we have all agreed upon through our elected representative, [has a] useful role to play," in keeping markets strong and fair."
Solidus Fullstop, Esq.
Solidus Fullstop, Esq.
"hey, you stole that sig from me!"
Couldn't someone file a sute clamming this is filed in defience of the wishes of the "class" in this class action lawsite?
Could investors legally side with VA and join VAs site of the legal battle?
Could investors who disagree with this lawsute something to terminate, oppose or in some way registure the fact that this lawsite is not in prepresentation of there own intrests?
It would be my guess that something could and should be done by VA supporting investors to oppose this...
Ideally Linux IPO investors are Linux advocates and many would not want such a lawsute on the behalf of themselfs...
I don't actually exist.
:) I am almost a lawyer... :) One more year left!
So this use of the name maybe make sense when you think about it, but for a law firm it's extremely careless and almost certainly actionable. And given that we know Linus does act against improper uses of his trademark, I see in my crystal ball another large chunk of the Linus Torvalds Personal Pension Fund coming on a check with 'Milberg' on the top...
It couldn't happen to a more deserving cause!
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
Wow insisting that corporate heads actually take personal responsibility for their actions. It will undermine the american way of life. Doesn't this scumbag lawyer realize that corporations were invented to shirk personal responsibility. Next thing you know he will insist that somebody be tried criminally for the 200 deaths that firestone caused.
War is necrophilia.
If the comment is valid, it can stand on its own without a basically untraceable pseudonym attached to it.
There is a reason they have "Anonymous Coward". It is for those who won't stand behind their opinion.
(the only reason it still exists is that it has the benefit of providing a hiding place for those revealing facts that they shouldn't).
As for posting my details, anyone with half a brain could figure out who I am. Send me an email with my address and I will take you seriously.
marty
"I can't buy want I want because it's free. Can't be what they want because I'm me." -Corduroy, Pearl Jam
I will now wait to see who figures this out. :)
Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I'll never know.
Please note that I am not a lawyer nor I'm professing to be one; I just happen to be able to read and exercise common sense, which seem just two of the many things most of the kids here need to develop. Withouth further ado, here it is:
o As mentioned in the several of the posts, why are they using 'Linux' as the shorthand for VA Linux?
Very simple. Pick up a copy of any financial newspaper or, if you feel so inclined, hit nasdaq.com and look through the SEC Filings. It is common practice to substitute a company's full name for a suitable substitute, be it initials, 'the Company', etc. It's actually clearly shown in the 2nd paragraph of the article (``Linux'' or the ``Company'');
o Are Yahoo or Millberg Weiss engaging in slander/libel/trademark infringement/blah/blah/blah by using 'Linux' in the article when referring to VA Linux?
Well, I think a better question would be: Is VA Linux engaging in trademark infringement by using 'Linux' in their own company name? After all, I don't think you see Joe's Coca-Cola or Fred's Campbell soup, do you?
o Here's the good stuff - This is what's happening:
CS First Boston (CSFB from here on) was handling the public offering of VA's shares. CSFB then went and offered some (a sizable amount, it seems) of those restricted IPO shares to buyers which may have not been part of the 'friends & family gig' in exchange for added commissions & fees, as well as a promise/commitment by those buyers to buy a preset number of shares *after* the IPO, regardless of the market price at the time.
This seemed like a good deal for CSFB because:
a) it insured that all of the 'friends and family' shares would be sold;
b) it insured that regardless of the market price after the IPO, the remaining shares (if any) would be sold, therefore resulting in added (*guaranteed*) revenue in comissions to CSFB;
c) it would please CSFB customers and encourage them to continue to do business with them.
VA Linux, Larry Augustin, and Todd Schull are also being sued because CSFB are just the brokers, and they can allege that they only offered those options/shares because they were instructed by VA Linux, whose President/CEO/Director is Larry Augustin, and whose VP of Finance/CFO is Todd Schull. Nothing could go on at VA Linux that these two should not be aware of/have a say in it (when it comes to such a big thing as a IPO).
Does that make it any clearer for some of you ding-dongs? Remember, this class action suit is not a 'selfish' thing per se. If you bought VA stock and happened to get short-changed, you can (with luck) recoup some of those losses. Also, note that in roughly 11 months, the shares went from ~$240 to $9. I wouldn't call that a 'stellar performance', even though CSFB considers them a 'strong buy' (HOLY SHIT, A PIG JUST FLEW BY). They're not making any profit (yah yah, you'll say 'YET!'); they're just losing less. *BIG* difference in those two.
Bear in mind that your $5k or $30k is not that much for CSFB when they have customers (read, ppl that have traders in their pocket) with portfolios worth millions. I know, because I worked for them.
nyah
P.S.- I know this will end up being scored as flamebait, but hey, at least I'm educating the idiots, and I can spell.
"We'll need 2000 crickets, 4 cans of Easy Cheese, and the fluid from 18 glowsticks for this plan to work...." - ph0n1c
amen._ ______
__________________________________________
$which weed
Cheers,
Umm... okay
I'm not against lawsuits -- they actually are one of the best methods by which corporations can be kept in line, instead of massive governmental control.
Plus, that 30% settlement money doesn't just sit around in a pile, the lawyers pay employees, buy yachts, buy computers, pay nerds to run the computers systems, etc. It's a form of wealth redistribution.
I just find it pathetic that a law firm thinks so little of itself (or has such a limited imagination) that it does things like this...
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
This Cisco exec should then be sued by the shareholders of Cisco for not making a business decision with solely the interests of Cisco the company and its shareholder value in mind. If someone is employed/appointed to the board of a company it is their responsibility to act solely in their interests with respect to his/her authority in the company.
I feel the same way but the truth is that dotcomm boards have been getting away with things that would seem unethical in traditional companies for quite a while. Here's an article on Fortune about some more weird dealings by the board of a dotcomm, most of these seem like fraud or at least seem unethical but so far not that many people seem to be getting punished.
Here's an expose on the shadiest dealing of the New Economy entitled MISADVENTURES IN THE ME-FIRST ECONOMY: Four tales from the ethical gray zone of the Internet economy from Fortune.
Grabel's Law
I too e-mailed them to point out the Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds, and he might be a bit miffed about them using it as shorthand for VA Linux Systems. Slander comes to mind.
-- There is no truth. There is only Perception. To Percieve is to Exist.
Obviously there's a whole lot more to this story. I don't dispute its potential news-worthiness and appropriateness for posting here. But the creation of news that is so uncritically "reported" by simply issuing a press release seems somehow opportunistic and irresponsible.
Oh yeah, we're talking about lawyers and news online. Never mind.
-schussat
The hour of noon has passed. Let us go and get some Kentucky Fried Chicken.
- Idiot reads news article that Linux is the next up and coming thing, doesn't really know what linux is...
- VA Linux offers for IPO,
- Idiot makes association between Linux and VA Linux, dreams of getting in early and retiring early begin,
- Life savings are withdrawn from bank and invested saying "How could it fail with LNUX as the stock symbol?"
- VA Linux initially does well, dreams of retiring early are replaced with dreams of owning small nations,
- VA Linux suffers the same fate of many dot coms last year and takes a downturn,
- Idiot's dreams explode and idiots wife starts bitching about loosing their life savings,
- Idiot does the typical thing by not blaming himself for gambling everything on something he knew nothing about, begins looking for scapegoats...
- Idiot meets other idiots and forms a class action lawsuit,
- Lawyers dive in like vultures since they are the only ones who will make any serious money
This story is repeated every day with different companies. This may be flamebait, but I think it is about time that people started accepting the consequences of the risks they take.File this under To Be Ignored
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
It sounds like Credit Suisse were the people causing the problem.
Apparently Credit Suisse took money from investors and guaranteed them shares of the IPO stock in VA Linux before the shares were actually public. Worse, the press release claims that they guaranteed investors a fixed price AFTER the IPO went off. It sounds like all of this was in exchange for money (aka "kickbacks").
Keeping in the realm of IANAL, from what I remember of IPOs, and going through one myself right now, the IPO price is never solid until almost immediately before it is released to the public. The SEC controls this stuff very closely, so any guarantee of prices or of share allocation significantly before an IPO is bad mojo.
This is different,of course, from investors directly investing in VA Linux. Pre-IPO, VA can solicit investors anywhere, but the problem is Credit Suisse's involvement, and the fact that they were exchanging shares earmarked for the IPO instead of some more direct equity (preferred stock, for example).
No matter what, if someone did do something wrong here, it sounds like Credit Suisse, not VA Linux.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
Your mom said 'VA Linux is as solid as my moral standing' I guess she was wrong!!
It looks like a few select investors and fund managers were hot to get in on the IPO. Not just anyone can buy IPO shares at the initial price, because those shares are restricted. So the investors paid off Credit Suisse, who were in charge of the IPO, by giving Credit Suisse extra commissions... a deal that Credit Suisse negotiated.
In some cases, the investor's commissions were determined by how much the IPO stock rose, aand therefore how much money the investors made on day one. (Note: and you thought BOXING was fixed...)
Even though CS did the dirty work, this involves VA Linux because it's VA Linux who writes the conditions of the IPO deal. And if not as many shares were available as VA Linux said there would be, they "lied" -- and the rest of the shareholders have gotten a raw deal. And due to supply and demand, if not as many shares were available as VA Linux said there would be -- that would have the effect of driving up the share price even higher at its opening.
last action lawsuit, sttarring acrnodl swachartnegeer jr.
---
Those who can, do. Those who can't, post on Slashdot about it.
Generally, in corporation law, shareholders can't touch your business decisions unless you really did something bad. Even if you lost all their money, they can't sue you if you did your best and did it always with increasing corporate value in mind.
Of course, they are the ones who pick the board of directors, so they have a little say. But not to the extent you imply. (Unless, of course, you have an investor who has a controlling share!)
[note, this isn't legal advice.]
Maybe VA Linux should have chosen a different trading symbol than "LNUX"... why not "VALX" or something... Because a lot of "investors" out there aren't reading up on the companies involved, just the ticker symbols. Well, maybe these days they do, since it's not the easy money days it was a few years back...
Remember LinuxOne and the uproar they cuased when they announced theye were planning to be traded under "LINX", yet everyone looked the other way when VA linux traded as "LNUX"
ANyways. THe press release is probably reading "Linux" simply due to confusion over the symbols and nothing more than that.
And you ruined my fun — I was hoping I wasn't the only one around here who bought some stocks in 2000 that were total dogs! (Not LNUX, but nearly as bad.)
Cheers,
I think there are two places where your view sharply diverge from reality:
There is no such thing as an "unwitting investor." People who give give money to endeavors they make no effort to understand, in the hopes of making large profits, are not called "investors." They are called gamblers, or speculators. Con men call them "dupes." No-one calls them "investors." These lawyers have no interest in helping anyone recoup their losses. They are not going to help anyone recoup their losses. I do not share the same general animosity and lawyers and the legal system held by many other people on slashdot; but it is painfully clear that in this case, dirty little parasites hope to use the broken parts of the US legal system to suck as much blood as they can out of VA Linux, with no intention of passing any significant amount back to the investors. Frankly, it's often the fault of the person getting conned. In general, con men don't con stupid or gullible people. They con greedy people. If you check out most of the successful cons jobs out there, they usually involve greedy dupes who were led to believe they were somehow taking advantage of the con man. It's true that the Internet IPO market started to look kind of ugly in the last few years, but it was never the case of greedy, evil companies taking poor, unsuspecting dupes to the cleaners. The reality is quite a bit more complicated. It usually is.Slashdot is jumping the shark. I'm just driving the boat.
- 1. There was something like a 'friends and family' program with the VA Linux IPO, where certain people got shares of VA Linux at the IPO price (this is common in IPOs).
- 2. VA Linux's underwriter, Credit Suisse ('CS') had a 30-day option to sell even more shares of VA Linux at the IPO price, up to 15% of the number of shares in the original IPO (this is also common in IPOs; the underwriter generally exercises the option and sells the shares if the IPO is a hot one).
- 3. The complaint basically says that these 'friends and family' shares and option shares were sold by CS to certain people in ways that gave CS extra benefits, hurting investors who could not buy these shares at the IPO price from CS.
- 4. This has been a sore topic for the SEC lately, where certain people get shares at the IPO price, and then can turn around and tell them immediately after the IPO, turning a very large profit, quickly.
- 5. It really has nothing to do with VA Linux itself, other than the mechanics of VA Linux's IPO.
This begs the question of why Credit Suisse isn't under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission and on the receiving end of this lawsuit as well, but I've heard nothing of the sort (so far)...--
Nobody would want to pass up that deal, and really I don't see how it is illegal. The additional shares you purchased were owned (it seems) by VA. Unless they've made a law against it, you can sell your property for whatever price you want. VA could have sold those shares for $.02 each if they wanted. As for people who are bitter about not being on the friends list, tough luck. It seems you were added to the list because you DID something to get there, and you deserved it. Good for you.
--John
Larry Augustin only made off with $9,612,905 according to Yahoo Finance, not $10 Million, as I had earlier reported.
Sorry, mea culpa.
Other insiders, and their 'earned' income:
Rob Russo (VP): $6,698,959
(While working only part-time - he's VP of two other companies as well.)
Bruce Twickler: $7,998,487
Not to shabby for a company which has made almost no contribution to the technological world, and has never earned a dime.
I expect we'll be seeing a lot more anger from stockholders as they realize they've been had..
(Just Was There And Did That)
.com fashion it fizzled on the market after a year or
I worked (technically still work, but the company recently shuttered it's doors) for a now-maligned
.com. We had a decent IPO, but in typical
so.
After the stock took it's initial nosedive, the lawyers crawled out of the woodwork, attempting to
scare up enough PO'd investors to raise a class action suit. A bit of research into the first
bottomfeeder to raise it's head showed me that the only reason for this (the attack weasels) firm's
existence was classaction suits, mostly against companies who's stock performance was less than
profitable.
This is NOT a good situation to be in. Even tho nothing had been officially served at the time,
the very smell of litigation scared off those who might have assisted us, and tied our hands in
other matters. IMHO, we could have worked our way out of the slump and gone somewhere. Instead
we're boxing it all up for the liquidators and turning off the lights.
We wern't the first to fall prey, and we certainly won't be the last. The bitch of it is, it's not
like these class action suits provide any relief to the 'victims' - they'll by lucky to see a few
cents (or fraction of a cent) on the dollar returned to them, while the attack weasels line
their pockets and buy another vacation home.
/* The purpose of this program is to underwrite VA Linux's IPO (front some money).
/* money in cents */
/* Money from IPO */
/* Number of Shares Left */
/* From standard_Bank_Procedure.h
/* From pretty_underhanded.h */
VA and Credit Suisse agree to not tell the SEC what they are doing. Credit Suisse
also agrees to help the IPO look really good by getting "major investors" to buy
big at ** inflated prices ** after the IPO. This will return inflated profits and
will inevitable result in frenzied Post-IPO buying. */
#include <standard_Bank_Procedure.h>
#include <pretty_underhanded.h>
int main(){
char VA_Linux = "Linux" ;
unsigned long int Make_Client_Overpay_After_IPO = 999999999999;
unsigned long int A_Shit_Load_Of_Money_To_VA_And_Credit_Suisse = ;
unsigned long int shares_left = 4500000;
/* Legal */
agreeToUnderwriteShares(VA_Linux);
do{
/* Illegal */
sell_Extra_Shares_Really_Cheap(excessive_fees);
sell_Shares_Cheap(Make_Client_Overpay_After_IPO);
sell_Shares_To_Anybody();
} while(VA_Does_Not_Disclose_To_SEC || shares_left == 0)
return A_Shit_Load_Of_Money_To_VA_And_Credit_Suisse;
}
Maybe this will force Slashdot to stop being bias in it's postings to this site. I have posted several times things to this site and only to find that they never show up. And further more if you look at the daily postings over a month you will find that it's mostly the same people who make it to the list. That's really bias...
These kinds of tort proceedings are very common. Of course, the lawyers who file the lawsuits on behalf of the shareholders typically represent only a small fraction of shareholders. These lawsuits are designed to mainly benefit the law firms which file them, rather than the stockholders. (This, BTW, is the case with most class action lawsuits because they aren't adequately regulated. Lawfirms constantly defend the broken system by claiming that Big Corporations are trying to stop you from suing them.)
This is vulturism, and the whole field needs reform. However, President Clinton has pushed hard against every kind of tort reform effort. Hopefully we'll see something in the near future to stop these stupid and predatory lawsuits.
It's time for another one of those slashdot interviews! "Ask the people who are suing us whatever you want!"
Slightly morbid, but maybe we can get them to drop the lawsuit on their own?
--
Peace,
Lord Omlette
ICQ# 77863057
[o]_O
... is what I like to ask. This may be off-topic, but I'm confused by the more and more common usage of german wording in /. and quite some other posts on the net. So anybody knows where and why this verboten-movement started ?
--
42 cows on a 42km road on their way to 42.org
"So long, motherfuckers!"
Conclusive proof that all linux users are criminals.
Milberg Weiss Rep after reading the reported fraud.
"It says here that they want to sue us for $10,000,000,000 dollars. I know it's probably not best to take this case to accept for ethical reasons (suing oneself) but look at the commission we'll get if we beat ourselves!"
-p4
(c) All Rights Released.
i've spent hours working on that machine - it's the it thing everyone's talking about. *grin*
Yeah, I'm that guy.
Yes, we should.
*duck*
<disclaimer>I am just kidding.</disclaimer>
Anyway, what I am wondering is WHY would VA arrange in price fixing in their IPO, if they did? and how common is this practice?
perdida
Goat sex free since 2001
does it have running gag references to Beowulf clusters, grits, or Natalie Portman?
----------
Technoli
there is a wall street journal quote on the lawyers page (in a pdf file) that confirms what you say. which doesn't mean it isn't still illegal. however the evidence appears somewhat circumstansial.
THEY aren't suing. They are retained by leading plaintiffs that feel that they've been treated in an illegal fashion. The only people that can sue are those that owned stock during the "class period". This law firm is representing those that are suing.
You are quite right. What is particularly interesting is that this was actually a common practice with hot technology IPOs , VA Linux is simply getting the short end of the stick from investors who are pissed of by the stock's massive drop, most companies that drop that far are usually hit by lawsuits from shark's masquearading as lawyers and it's actually a surprise that it took this long. Unfortunately what this means is that if this lawsuit sticks ta lot more tech companies that IPOed in 1999/2000 may face heat for what was at the time a common practice.
PS: Another questionable practice that was quite common in 1999/2000 was giving away lots of shares by CEOs of IPO-track tech companies to executives of potential customers. These executives then made sure the IPO-track company won whatever contract was being vied for which would then make the pre-IPO company a hot stock when it burst on the market.
E.g. www.routerparts.com gives Cisco exec a few shares before their IPO and places him on their board. Cisco exec then makes sure routerparts.com gets a large order from Cisco and tells all his friends about them. routerparts.com now has good buzz since it has made deals with Cisco and other companies and becomes a hot IPO stock. Finally, the Cisco exec unloads the shares and makes several hundred to a few million dollars.
Grabel's Law
no it's not resonable. You should choose a term that relatively clearly & uniquely refers to the company in question the term Linux clearly & uniquely refers to something else...
Yes, but it is lawyers who write documents such as this, and in legal language, the use of the phrase:
ensures that "Linux" clearly and uniquely refers to VA Linux Systems, Inc.
It's their document, and they can define terms like this to mean whatever they want, as long as they inform you.
'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.' -- Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass
- cicadia
Living better through chemicals
I'm really hoping that this thread is just tomfoolery, because they could just have easily written "...of VA Linux Systems, Inc. (''Binky'')." It's just saying that, for shorthand, they're going to use another name.
I'd like to have seen the Binky approach myself. "Your Honour, we claim that Binky told lies to the plaintiffs!"
--
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Sounds to me like ol' Bill needs to be beaten, all right... with a frigging Louisville Slugger.
Why is it our culture/society puts up with destructive assholes like him?
--
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Yah, shit, now he has only $600 000. Unless he wisely sold stock earlier, in which case he likely has well over a million bucks kicking around.
Lessee... $1 000 000 invested to earn 10% annual interest = $100 000 a year for life, without touching the principle.
Shit, ya know, I think I could go for that.
--
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Besides the allegation, the complaint makes, I got a very funny feeling reading it. In the front page, they decide to abbriviate "VA Linux Systems, Inc." just with "Linux". This leades to sentences such as:
:-)
"Defendants are Linux and [...]" (Sue an OS?)
"Linux is a Delaware Company" (Now it's an corporate entity)
"Linux was required to comply with SEC regulations" (Security audits like C2?)
I worry that this could be (maybe intentionally) misquotet like "Linux sued for securities-fraud" or something like that. It's bad enough that there are people who installed "Linux 7.0" insted of "RedHat/SuSE Linux 7.0"
Overall, this is more against Credit Suisse and it's business methods of handling over-hyped IPOs than against VA personally. If VA can show proof that they didn't know what their underwriter was doing, they have a chance. Sadly, this case just demonstrate that the US stock bubble, which just started to burst, was based on the fact that common peoples savings shifted into institutional investors. And mony circulation drives the economy, you know
Ummm...you are ignoring Milberg's extraordinarily cynical modus operandi: class action lawsuits. While there ARE "lead plaintiffs" in these cases, Milberg specializes in using them as a vehicle for sweeping in HUGE classes of people who never chose to be plaintiffs. Milberg becomes the money-sucking proxy that multiplies its fees by every unsuspecting member of the class. By default, you have to actually take action (in the form of an explicit opt-out) in order to be excluded from the class. I have, in my own history, found myself to be a plaintiff in a number of Milberg lawsuits, even though I thought EVERY SINGLE ONE was frivolous and contrary to my own interests. Who's suing whom? Make no mistake about it...Milberg does the suing, and the lead plaintiffs are merely partners in crime. bart
By your rational the whole market (under any conditions) is a con. By extension any form of sale (for cash) or barter is too. Any place where I as a merchant try to sell something to a buyer is. After all, I'm going to proceed so as to make my goods appear as valuable as possible (to all buyers).
people finally realizing that there is no way these companies can sustain their market cap
Nope. What caused the crash is people stopping to believe that everyone else was believing. Its all about consumer confidence... which is like a shared halucination. I think that the market is going to go up, and that I can make money buying this stock. Whats more a lot of other people share the same belief, so the stock keeps going up. As long as more people believe that they can make money then those that don't, the stock will keep going up. The market cap (total value of all shares) is a manifestation of the shared halucination. The real things are the earnings per share, the profits and so on. Economists have been warning for months, if not years, that there was a stock bubble and grinding their teeth about how bad it will be when it bursts. Their main point has been that by all (what had been up to now) rational indicators (earnings etc) these stocks were not worth what they were being traded for. But their words fell on deaf ears. Everyone believed that yahoo was work 200+$/share. After all, all of america can't be wrong. But the moment the halucination ends yahoo is worth (relatively) peanuts.
--locust
Dan.
Cue The Sun...
Taco doesn't have millions of dollars. He was paid about 6 million in VA stock for the Slashdot buyout. That was over a year ago when VA was selling for over $100/share. Now that it's around $8/share he only has a fraction of what he once had. If anyone should be pissed at VA, it's Taco.
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
To me, this sounds like the kind of legal manvering employed by the "bad guys" in Stephenson's "Cryptonomicon" - a form of financial obstruction strategy.
Of course, fully functioning adults understand that caveat emptor is the law in speculative financial dealings..!
(this is not a
The "Lerach" bill
Year 2000 suits
And on Red Herring
When they got sued and lost
--
A mind is a terrible thing to taste.
"A mind is a terrible thing to taste."
Trust me, your email didn't do anything for the community, unless you count making it the object of ridicule by anyone who thinks that the rest of us are like you.
So you think everyone that reads that press release is going to notice the paragraph at the top that mentions that "Linux" != Linux ?!?
Just curious, but do you always fire off stupid, anal-retentive emails like that?
Not all the time, just when I feel like putting my 2 cents in. If your comment was so valid, put your name to it.
marty
"I can't buy want I want because it's free. Can't be what they want because I'm me." -Corduroy, Pearl Jam
Sorry, but anybody who paid the ridiculously high prices in the post-IPO environment and is now sitting on big losses has nobody to blame but themselves (and possibly their investment advisors).
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
I think it's more like attorneys have no concept of Truth. All arguments have merit and can be argued ... so pick the side of the argument that has the most money. Wait -- what you said.
or maybe they've just established a company that does very well in pursuing class action lawsuits so based on reputation, people retain them for the lawsuits.
ever think that maybe people can do legitimate legal work that involves suing people?
Yeah, it's a bit like suing Windows, isn't it? Or maybe NTKRNL.EXE?
--Joe--
Program Intellivision!
PS. Any info on where I sign up to join the lawsuit? Thanks.
Just click here and click the button at the bottom of the page. Don't forget to tell them how terrible Linux is so they know you're not a spy. Good luck.
If you can read this, then I forgot to check "Post Anonymously".
How does Hemos get so far ahead of us?
--
--
Poliglut.org: 75 Million gun owners can't be wrong
Kuro5hin: technology and culture, from the trenches
Everything Slashdot should have been.
K5 is like Slashdot, but it allows users to see and moderate the submission queue. The stories are more detailed. It also has very little spam (the -1 FP/portman/goatse.cx shit) because the community just doesn't tolerate it.
But if VA Linux dies, so does the rest of OSDN, which means no more free hosting for free software projects, as most free servers limit file sizes and bandwidths to keep the warez kiddies from hogging their resources.
Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Yeah these guys are idiots. Everyone knows RedHat == Linux.
Looks like one allegation is that the underwriter illegally inflated the opening price of the stock. The irony here is that many of the people who participated in the IPO, a portion of whom were open-source contributors who were given a few hundred shares each, benefitted enormously by purchasing the stock at the IPO price, and selling it immediately at or near $300. It was a nice windfall for a lot of hackers that was apparently the result of some illegal back-room banking.
The Milberg Weiss website is asking for applicants to be lead plantiffs. My question is: how the hell do you file a lawsuit, even if it is class-action, with no lead plaintiff to begin with? Can a lawyer just file a lawsuit first, and find a plaintiff later? That somehow doesn't seem right...
Right...
If the class action suit fails, can we sue the law firm for making our shares of LNUX drop? Maybe a class action suit is in order...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Look at the name VA Linux - 'Linux' is the largest portion of the name
This lawsuit is about the aclaimed practices of VA Linux during their IPO - Their sticker name is LNUX I believe (or something very close)
One of the company's biggest focus is on Linux
Any ( and probably all ) these reasons could be why the lawfirm chose to use 'Linux' as the abbreviation of VA Linux. It really does make sense when you think about it.
/. is a commercial entity. goto slashdot.com
There's an important difference between get rich schemes that fail and lives lost. These days, it seems that if you play with fire against everyone's recommendations, you can still sue someone for giving you the fire that you burnt yourself on. Laywers may be needed for certain things, but do they need to become a way of life? It seems that more and more they are becoming so. We've got people sueing McDonalds because they were stupid enough to pour hot coffee on themselves, people going after the entertainment industry because parents are screwing up raising their kids. It's SICK.
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
He can and he should. A big one.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Ahhh, good old Milberg Weiss. They're the moral equivalent of ambulance chasers in the securities law field.
--
You mean carefull, not cluefull, right? As they have set themselves up for a trademark infringement suit. And a good one...
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
WTF? I was in on the deal too, only the way it worked was that the expected price doubled in the last week or so, so they changed the amount a bit.
Instead of "100 shares, take 'em or leave 'em", they changed it to "50 or 100" since the price had doubled. But... they also had a deal where you could get 140 shares since (as they put it) they had extra stuff available.
I of course bought the 140 at $30, and would have bought more if possible. Easy money.
But this! This is nuts. You talk about Credit Suisse... I was dealing with Deutsche Bank Alex Brown. Why the difference?
Geez - all of a sudden Bill G. sounds like the warm and fuzzy type.
If you ignore the 100s of paid developers that work for VA, producing nothing but 100% free open source code for Linux, you'd be right.
Hmmm... Had a look at the second linked webpage. It contains some guff, followed by a bug button saying:
"Click Here to Retain Milberg Weiss"
Now there's a nice target for Amazon to sue... Or maybe they (milbergweiss) already have a patent for 'one click lawyer retaining'?
Sorry, I dislike lawyers and everything related to them. My parents taught me not to lie. Guess their parents did the same, but they obviously interpreted it as 'lie if the price is right'. 'Nuff said...
--frank[at]unternet.org
I like the button on their site: "Click Here to Retain Milberg Weiss"... hehe, it's One-Click Lawsuits! (patent pending)
I can't even figure out what the problem is, and I read the complaint. It just goes to show (as I learned from reading Cryptonomicon) investors are looking for any technicality to use to file a lawsuit against you. Fucking greedy capitalists.
Aha! I was wondering the point behind this little piece of boilerplate in the complaint:
A class action is superior to all other available methods for the fair and efficient adjudication of this controversy. Plaintiff knows of no difficulty to be encountered in the management of this action that would preclude its maintenance as a class action.
I, for one, am bothered by the very fact they sold their stock as "Linux" - my mother saw something about "Linux" stocks on the news, and ever since I can't get her to understand Linux per se is niether a company nor owned / produced by any particular company. Its misleading, and that is enough to concern me.
But if I did, I could sue 'em, right?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The law firm of Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach LLP announces that a class action lawsuit was filed on January 11, 2001, on behalf of purchasers of the securities of VA Linux Systems, Inc. (``Linux'' or the ``Company''...
Further reading of the article produces such phrases as "The action...[is pending]... against defendants Linux, Credit Suisse First Boston Corporation...
They're suing "Linux"?
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
I'm just amazed it's been this long before somebody sued them.
- RustyTaco
(notreally)rustytaco@kurodot.org
VA on behalf of the shareholders (owners) of VA, doesn't that sorta mean that you're suing someone on behalf of themselves?
---
You forgot to include such gems as:
[...] On December 9, 1999, Linux completed an initial public offering of 4.4 million of its shares of common stock at an offering price of $30 per share (the "Linux IPO"). In connection therewith, Linux filed a registration statement, which incorporated a prospectus (the "Prospectus"), with the SEC. [...]
can Linus [Torvalds] file a countersuit on grounds of FUD, trademark violation, and general idiocy by means of legalese?
// zyqqh
I notice that they're shopping around for someone to act as the lead plaintiff in this case. What I want to know, is whether anyone who actually owned VA Linux stock bitched about this to anyone, or is this just another case of bottom-feeding scumbags watching the stock tickers, and suing on the "the stock fell, it must me somebody's fault" theory? -jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
What this really means is...
- VA loses a ton of money fighting this.
- Milberg sues and, if they win, they get a ton of money out of what they get from VA.
- The investors each get a check for their tenth of a cent, the only money left after the Milberg assholes get paid.
Fuck lawyers.
1. There was something like a 'friends and family' program with the VA Linux IPO, where certain people got shares of VA Linux at the IPO price (this is common in IPOs).
2. VA Linux's underwriter, Credit Suisse ('CS') had a 30-day option to sell even more shares of VA Linux at the IPO price, up to 15% of the number of shares in the original IPO (this is also common in IPOs; the underwriter generally exercises the option and sells the shares if the IPO is a hot one).
3. The complaint basically says that these 'friends and family' shares and option shares were sold by CS to certain people in ways that gave CS extra benefits, hurting investors who could not buy these shares at the IPO price from CS.
4. This has been a sore topic for the SEC lately, where certain people get shares at the IPO price, and then can turn around and tell them immediately after the IPO, turning a very large profit, quickly.
5. It really has nothing to do with VA Linux itself, other than the mechanics of VA Linux's IPO.
6. This is a personal interpretation, not a legal opinion.
"In periods of decline such as the present, the higher truth lies in madness." -- Juergen Habermas
These sorts of shenanigans have been going on for years precisely because they're not actually shenanigans: they're just a normal part of the process. When you start a company, it's your business whom you pick to be your partners. It's the same with initial public offerings, except those are even more democratic in nature.
When Redhat went ipo, plenty of people active in the opensource movement got a special offer to join the IPO, and slashdot was abuzz with the excitement of it all. This with VaLinux is just another kind of special offer. Nothing to see here; move along.
Read the rest of this comment...
so this has nothing to do with Slashdot's duty of care its cronically addicted posters? ok, just checking.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Well technically you are right... but if they have such a long and undistinguished history of pushing many of these kinds of cases, they probably track down companies that are potential targets and then contact the people who actually can sue and try to convince them to file.
-- Point? None! Cob.
From the press release:
This is bad press for the Linux community in general, because the company is called VA Linux Systems and they are being addressed simply as "Linux." (It's only bad because most non-technical people probably don't know that Linux isn't owned by a company. The name VA Linux and the symbol LNUX probably don't help.)
In connection with the recent /. story "Ballmer Claims Linux Is Top Threat To MS", I'm sure the folks over in Redmond are having a good chuckle over this one.
An IPO costs loads of money. It requires corporate restructuring, marketing of the issue, compliance documentation and their is the risk that the issue falls flat.
The guy who picks up the risk is the lead issuer. In this case CSFB. Like any professional, they look at the risk and charge a premium so that they are compensated for the case that an issue fails. Their premium is a guaranteed piece of the action. I guess they are also working as a specialist, so they need to have an inventory of shares as they must underwrite the post-IPO liquidity.
A lead issuer generally goes out and gets some others to help out. Generally, they guarantee to the issuer that a percentage of their shares will be placed at better than a particular price. This is a heavy risk, so generally the lead issuer forms a consortium to underwrite the issue and then runs sweetheart deals with its own favoured investors who help out by guaranteeing the market. The bank therefore does not take so much direct risk, but takes its percentage from the cash flowing through.
The end result is a placement that generates cash for the issuer, but a successful placement makes boartloads of cash for the underwriting consortium. There is no guarnteed path to fortune by being a consortium participant so you have to unload risk. Once or twice, the investors taking the ultimate risk get stuffed so they need some sweet issues as well to keep them hungry for the higher risk ones.
Post IPO is something else. Anyone who was buying at the P/E ratios that were running around before the crash was climbing into a bubble. A company's real value is a composite of current and future value, but that future value needs a definite horizon beyond which you can see a real return on investment.
Essentially I agree with someone elses comment that this is a group of shareholders to winge their way out of a deal that went sour with the post-IPO collapse in the share-price.
See my journal, I write things there
From what I gather, the underwriters (Credit Suisse) were paid to pre-allocate IPO shares to certain investors, and also made quid pro quo deals, where investors were allocated IPO shares in exchange for guaranteeing that they would buy shares at a certain price at a later date. I'm hazy on the SEC rules regarding the first allegation, but I'm pretty sure the second point constitutes illegal price fixing, and is quite verboten. Could be wrong, tho.
try /dev/random
ah, you figured me out. heh.
- Bill G.
The whole VA IPO was pretty strange. The "friends" (some Open Source developers and such) each had the option to buy 100 shares of VA at $30 provided we all filled out the right paperwork ahead of time.
The strange part was, two days after the IPO (while frantically trying to get a confirmation that Credit Suisse had indeed received all the paperwork and actually pay for the shares) I mananged to get in touch with a CS broker. She then said that VA had a new plan where I could purchase an additional 30 shares at $30 and would I like to do that? I was completely baffled that they could do this. The current market price was close to $300. Who wouldn't want to take that deal? Zero risk, big gain.
I immediately sold those 30 shares for about $4800 profit. Those of you who think this math is wacked need only recall taxes, etc. At least I paid for all the money I forked over to buy the shares initially so I don't feel so bad that they're nearly worthless now.
Perhaps this little "extra" is the problem some investors have with Credit Suisse. It did seem a bit arbitrary that they would offer this to people after the IPO had happened. It's one thing to sign up for an IPO where your committing the purchase price regardless of the outcome of the IPO and a whole different thing to choose after the fact if you want to buy more at the same price.
I'm posting anonymously since many people are still bitter about not being on the VA friends list and I don't want to rub it in anyone's face that I made it on.
Who said corporate heads shouldn't take personal responsibility for their actions? The point is that the kind of legal actions that Bill L. and his ilk undertake aren't really about holding executives accountable, they're about peeling off cash for the legal eagles. Every decline in the stock market is an opportunity.
That's because Clinton used to be a lawyer. Professional curtesy.
Daniel
...before my career as a web developer began, I worked for Milberg on class-action suits against insurance companies (this was in 96). At the time I thought we were the good guys, fighting the big baddies on behalf of the people. Learned during the course of that year just what a bunch of greedy ruthless sons of bitches the partners at MWBHL were. The partners pocketed more than 100 million from the suit. Average plaintiff (many of whom had lost their life's savings to the insurance companies) received on the order of $1,000. Left the legal field altogether after that. Web app dev is a lot more fulfilling....
La via sola al paradiso incommincia nel inferno
Your general person in the U.S. is nothing more than a sheep or a lemming. All you have to do is look around and you can see how corrupt this whole country is. Most people don't want to know or don't care. Face it, big business, big power brokers and the rich/ultra rich run this country. Remember the golder rule: "He who has the gold, makes the rules." People laugh at this, but don't realize how true this really is. If you have the money, the lawyers and "get" a favorable judge you can have anything done you want. If anyone saw "Wall Street" you can see the corrupt things that went on in that movie actually happen in real life. Face it, this country is BOUGHT and PAID for. You and me, the average joe don't mean dick! Heck elections are bought, manipulated to whatever end is needed, and the guy who has the most money, best lawyers etc.. is who wins. If you have lots of money and good lawyers you can trample on anyone you want - MPAA, RIAA, Amazon etc.. (cough) (cough).
Face it, our votes DON'T count, What we have to say DOESN'T mean dick. The next four years will be very scary, one plitical party basically has control of every part of the top level of our government. Gaurenteed the people that wrote the U.S. constitution and the Rill of Rights are turning over in their graves.
All these people wanting to flock to this country really don't know what their getting into. I am surprised people aren't flocking to get out of the country. But, like I said your general U.S. citizen is deaf, dumb and blind.
They ony way all this corruption will change is if at least 2/3 of the U.S. rise up and yell and scream about it. You also need LOTS of people to boycott companies that are "paying off/buying off" government officials, judges etc.. Problem is, people wouldn't do what needs to be done to correct things - they are to passive. What ever happend to the fighting spirit Americans had 300 years ago? Oh yeah I forgot - they turned to beating their spouse's, mugging people, raping, killing, [name your violent crime].... See what I mean? This country is goung down the toilent -- FAST!
The Truth is a Virus!!!
Would someone be so kind as to explain exactly what the hell all that legal jibberish means?
I've seen these types of lawsuits before.
From the press release, what is being alleged is some collusion between VA Linux and Credit Suisse First Boston. These types of lawsuits are pretty common (as are lawsuits every time a stock price drops significantly).
The plaintiffs in this case are shareholders, so they really don't want to wreck the company any more than we want the company to go under.
1) VA Linux isn't being sued for the allegedly fraudulent practices of CSFB. It's being sued for a violation of section 11, which imposes liability for misstatements or omissions on the registration statement of the IPO. One of the required bits of info for the reg statement is a description of the underwriter agreement(s). VA Linux obviously didn't disclose exactly what CSFB was doing (either because it didn't know, or because it didn't want to), so it can be liable because of the omission/misstatement. It doesn't have to be shown that VA participated in the fraud in any way; VA is strictly liable.
2) CSFB is being sued not only for VA Linux's charge, but also for fraudulently selling some of its allotment of shares (a 10(b) violation and a section 12(a)(2) violation). While 10(b) is pretty broad -- and thus VA Linux could feasibly have been within its net -- Milberg probably thought it couldn't allege all the elements of a 10b-5 violation (most likely because it didn't think it could allege that VA knew about what CSFB was doing) to include VA in the count.
3) VA's and CSFB's counsel has defended more securities class action suits than any other firm in the nation. Suffice it to say they're well-represented.
Read that article...it describes some of Lerach's tactics in detail, tactics which you can bet your ass he and his partners will employ against VA Linux. (He once sued Sun Microsystems simply because he got left out of a $30M lawsuit settlement; Sun eventually had to pay him $1.5M just to get him to go away.) And check out this Fortune sidebar, too...not even Pikachu is safe from this man...
But he can be beaten...just check out this article...
Eric
--
Be who you are...and be it in style!
to give you an idea of just how fantastically successful VA's IPO was, just let me say this:
according to Bloomberg analytics, VA had the best first-day performance of any IPO during Q4 99. they beat out 160 other IPOs for the largest first-day gain of 797% (from IPO price of 30 to close at 239 1/4). and it went even higher, to 252, in after-hours trading that day.
so i don't find it tough to believe that funny stuff was going on.
-----
ever think that maybe people can do legitimate legal work that involves suing people?
Theoretically, yes.
In this case, they're lawyers. So the answer is no.
.sig: Now legally binding!
I should file as a co-plaintiff, and maybe "make my millions" of this case???
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Just wanted to say thanks for the info about this. :)
:)
I'm curious though, whats the third A for?
I Am A ? Lawyer?
I Am An Accented Lawyer?
Accentuated?
Audacious?
Amazing?
Arcane?
help me out here.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Now VA Linux is being called "Linux", rather than Red Hat. I was getting tired of RH == Linux and vice versa!
It's not that simple. You can sell your property for whatever price you want, but if you want to sell shares to the U.S. public market, you have to follow the SEC's rules and regulations (see the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934).
Increasing someone's participation (i.e., the number of shares they get) in a 'friends and family' program of an IPO AFTER trading in the shares has begun seems like something that the SEC would not approve of.
"In periods of decline such as the present, the higher truth lies in madness." -- Juergen Habermas
Bloody leaches.
Considering their press release seems to think they were screwed out of shares of "Linux", I wouldn't exactly call these people clueful.
Most likely it is a law firm that starts class action suits for stocks that don't go up. Class actions are a bonanza for the prosecuting firm, even if the charges are baseless. They almost always settle.
[insert inflamatory comment here]