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Bill Gates Fined $800,000 Over Stock Purchases
Bronz writes "CNN Money is reporting that Bill Gates has been fined $800,000 for violating antitrust waiting period for stock purchases. The department alleged that Gates bought more than $50 million worth of stock in ICOS Corp. through his personal investment trust and failed to notify antitrust officials about the purchase, as required." It's also clarified: "The technical incident has nothing to do with the government's massive antitrust battles with Microsoft."
Bill gates is known for investing in non-tech companies such as John Deere.
Yes, you heard that right: MS Drugs.
Kinetic stupidity has a new brand leader: Allen Zadr.
what is Bill Gates interested in a drug making/researching company for?
For the same reason Martha Stewart was interested in ImClone. Drug companies have huge potential in share price gain as they tend to copyright everything, and sell at huge margins... provided, of course, their product gets past the FDA.
Remember, it was Bill Gates the person that bought the stock and got fined, not Micro$oft.
Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
This is totally different. Martha's was insider trading, whereas Bill is antitrust. In the legal and financial world there is a difference.
Martha Stewart went to jail for OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE (lying about using inside information). Bill Gates is being fined for not reporting a purchase as he's required to. COMPLETELY different crimes, it's not a woman thing (not that I think she should be in jail but what he did is a lot less illegal)
this money doesn't go to feed or clothe poor people
How do you know that? Have you ever heard of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation?
Not that I like Bill by any stretch. He justifies tyranny in one respect with philanthropy in other areas.
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You are incorrect. Martha Stewart didn't get busted for insider trading. she got busted for lying about it to the feds. As far as insider trading goes, there were several people who, through the same stock broker, sold more ImCLone stock on the same advice. She was chosen as the sacrificial lamb (if i recall, her friend's (who testified against her) ex husband sold considerably more stock on the insider knowledge. check out reason.com 's archives for martha stewart - the article i recall is pre-trial, and they're blatantly pro martha, but most of their points remain salient.
Don't worry - its just stigmata. Pass me a napkin and don't you dare tell my mother.
That would be us Finns. Most fines are based on your yearly income. This still gets circulated and I don't think it's still quite right. Think about it: Bill Gates losing, say, ten days worth of income would flinch. Maybe. If even that. Someone who earns $1500 a month before taxes would not like to lose $500 in fines. To Bill it's a matter of the newspapers writing about record fines. To Joe Cubicle it's a matter of eating porridge and tuna & rice for a month. Nobody writing articles about that.
I think at least Norway has a somewhat similar system to ours at least on some fines. There are other countries I'm sure.
Like this $800000 fine with Bill, most laws like that still amount to a slap on the wrist even if the slap is a bit bigger than using the same fine for everyone.
Sigs for Nerds. Sigs that Matter.
800k is 0.002% of $40B, so a $5 fine is equal if have a net worth of $250k.
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It's not like doesn't have the money. Fining him 800k is like fining me 5$.
... but rather how much money you fraudulently made (or how much loss you avoided).
The fine is not based on how much you make, or how much you are worth (such as setting bail amounts)
Typically, the fine is up to three times the profit you made (or loss you avoided).
Here's an interesting page (PDF) on the subject. Review section 3.
Much less than that, I figure. Bill is currently worth about 40 billion; $800,000/$40,000,000,000 is 2.0e-5. Take your net worth and multiply it by 2.0e-5: it'll be less than a dollar if you are worth less than $50,000 (net--that means subtract liabilities from assets).
No copyright notice needs to be given. No explicit copyright need to be posted.
Educate yourself.
What this artist did was to post copyright licensing terms after the use. Without such licensing terms, then one must request permission before making any reproduction of that material.
Kinetic stupidity has a new brand leader: Allen Zadr.
Had she just come forward and admitted there was an improper trade she'd have paid a fine and everyone would have moved along.
Actually, it's exactly the other way around. She has been convicted for what she said.
If she had simply remained silent there would have been no crime.
Nor do I at all confuse "innocent" with "found guilty," and have posted previously on the difference between the two.
O.J. is not "Innocent". He is also "Not Guilty."
One is a statement of fact, the other a statement of legal finding.
Martha Stewart is still, in the legal sense, 100% innocent of violating law with regards to insider trading (notwithstanding the above mentioned civil action by the SEC, where the worst penalty she faces is being found "Liable," which finding has nothing to do with guilt or innocence, thus the lowered level on burden of proof in such cases).
She has been convicted of lying. For speaking up. Which she was under no compulsion to do.
Bill Gates, et all, in the meantime, falsified evidence during trial and presented it as sworn testimony, over a charge they were found guilty of, and the end result was censure of the judge for getting publicly pissed off about it after trial and the slap on the wrist given to Microsoft reduced to being flailed once with a wet noodle.
Not a very hard wet noodle either.
No one was disbarred, no one went to jail, no one was even charged with perjury.
I'm no fan of Ms. Stewart. So far as I can tell she's an arrogant prick who thinks rules only apply to other people. I am biased by not knowing her, but knowing people who know her, who think she's an arrogant prick who thinks rules only apply to other people. In the Hamptons she had created more social discord than everyone else put together. If someone is making a fuss about someone not obeying some zoning law or other, it's likely to be Martha. If someone is making a fuss because she's being asked to obey some zoning law or other, it's Martha.
I don't care for people like that.
Especially when it's the government.
KFG
The purchase of the stock wasn't illegal... it was his failure to report the purchase that brought on the fine. There was nothing illegal about the $14M in potential profit.
I find it very unlikely that the reporting of his purchase would have had any negative effects on the stock price, so I don't really think that there is any connection between him paying the $800k and his profit.
It still looks like he paid the $800k for no apparent reason, at least in this case.
I agree with your point in general, though, in that the fines are nothing more than a "cost of doing business" in a lot of cases.
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