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SCO Puts a Cap on its Legal Expenses

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the buck-stops-here dept.

prostoalex writes "The SCO Group reached an agreement with the lawyers to limit the litigation expenses to $31 million until the IBM lawsuit is resolved. The company already paid $12 million to Boies Schiller & Flexner LLP, Kevin McBride and Berger Singerman, which provide legal services to the company."

32 of 247 comments (clear)

  1. Until Microsoft slides more money under the door by justanyone · · Score: 5, Funny


    Enough for now...
    Until Microsoft slides more money under the door...

    --
    Unitarian Church: Freethinkers Congregate!
  2. goodbye CS... hello law school by xannik · · Score: 5, Funny

    I need to get me a piece of that. :-)

    --

    Go Illini!!!
    1. Re:goodbye CS... hello law school by tomhudson · · Score: 5, Funny
      Lawyers have morals? Since when?
      Q. Why do they use lawyers for testing instead of lab rats. A. 1. PETA won't bomb your lab if you use lawyers
      2. Lab assistants won't get attached to them
      3. There are some things lab rats just won't do.

      Now, having said all that, some lawyers are ok - just look at the ones working for IBM.

      Mind you, you have to wonder just how far a lawyer can stretch things before he's a willing participant in misleading the court. They MUST know that some of the arguments they (SCO) have made are outright lies and legal fiction. . .

  3. God Bless The Laywers by NETHED · · Score: 5, Funny

    You know, I think the Lawyers are on our side FOR ONCE. They are milking SCO dry. Anyway I could contact them so they would have to bill SCO? I know, lets SLASHDOT the Lawyer office, and make sure that they bill SCO.

    Better be quiet, FBI might come knocking (*AGAIN*)

    --
    --sig fault--
    1. Re:God Bless The Laywers by Donoho · · Score: 5, Funny

      even though I think they only have to last until MS comes out with Longhorn

      ROFLMAO Sweet, then they're as good as dead.

      --
      Michalangelo Progr
    2. Re:God Bless The Laywers by yog · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I know you're kidding but it's still a sad commentary on the way the legal profession has undermined the economy.

      Those lawyers have done nothing for SCO and yet they have greatly enriched themselves from shareholders' money. Granted some of that money came from outfits with questionable morals themselves, like The Canopy Group, but that's also money that could have been invested in hiring software people to help improve their products and their competitive position in the market. SCO was once a reputable company, after all.

      Here's a question for some legal expert. Since Boies et al were paid in stock a while back, they are now a major stockholder in SCO, 25% as I recall. I wonder if they can therefore be sued by any parties who have a grievance against SCO? Like practically the entire open source development community, IBM, Redhat, Novell, etc.

      I have personal experience with the damage they have caused; I have dealt with people in the embedded market who were avoiding embedded Linux because of "the lawsuit". The very lawyers who represent this rogue company are its owners; they are purely and openly in it for the profit regardless of right and wrong.

      --
      it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
    3. Re:God Bless The Laywers by superpulpsicle · · Score: 4, Insightful

      How the hell do you turn all this legal negativity into a product or service to sell? Amazingly SCO lawyers did it! Go to http://www.sco.com, under product & services you see

      "SCO vs. IBM"
      "SCO vs. Autozone"
      "SCO vs. Novell"

      You know your lawyers are good when they have convinced the webmaster to advertise their lawsuits just like any other products.

    4. Re:God Bless The Laywers by rkent · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I know you're kidding but it's still a sad commentary on the way the legal profession has undermined the economy. Those lawyers have done nothing for SCO and yet they have greatly enriched themselves from shareholders' money.

      And who do you blame for this? The first response to jump to mind should be "whatever jackass decided to pay the lawyers so much for such a hopeless lawsuit". An old saw in the legal profession is that the reason lawyers are such assholes, is that clients are such assholes (see my profile for more about my stake in the whole debate). A lawyer is the agent of his client's interests in the legal realm; simply that and nothing more.

      Here's a question for some legal expert. Since Boies et al were paid in stock a while back, they are now a major stockholder in SCO, 25% as I recall. I wonder if they can therefore be sued by any parties who have a grievance against SCO?

      No. As another poster said in this thread, the very point of setting up a corporation is to establish a firewall for legal liability. There are a couple of recourses, though:

      1) If you think the lawsuit is truly malicious and has no plausible basis in fact, you could sue SCO et al for bringing a frivolous suit, but you would have to have standing (i.e., actually be injured yourself). You could accomplish that several ways, but being an IBM principal or employee, or someone else whose livelihood "depends" on Linux would be a good start.

      2) If you are a shareholder of SCO, you could bring an action against the board of directors, personally as individuals and in their role as directors, and probably McBride and other "wayward" executives. The basis for this would be that the management of SCO is doing things that are actually against its shareholders' best interests (as confirmed by the miserable performance of SCO stock), and thus violating securities regulations.

      See how it always comes back to the company, not the lawyers? It's because they can only be as mean as SCO tells them to be. Actually, I'm kind of surprised that someone hasn't tried #2 yet; I guess there's always the hypothetical possibility they'll prevail and make some money, but it seems much more likely that they're tilting at windmills and wasting money that would be much better spent on, oh, R&D or something.

  4. So where's the rest going? by tomhudson · · Score: 5, Interesting
    From the article:
    SCO Group said it paid its attorneys roughly $12.6 million under the agreement for outstanding legal fees and expenses. For future legal fees, the company is to pay a total of $12 million plus contingency fees, it said.
    Okay, that gives a total of $24.6 million. Which leaves $6.4 million unaccounted for. Or is this what McBride is going to have SCO pay Kevin?
  5. Kevin McBride, WTF? by mr.henry · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Is he related to Darl?

    1. Re:Kevin McBride, WTF? by aweraw · · Score: 4, Informative

      Yes. His brother.

      Shady...

      --
      5468652047616D65
  6. Cap by tuxter · · Score: 5, Funny

    Executioner puts cap on Darl McBride's head before throwing the switch......

    1. Re:Cap by PornMaster · · Score: 4, Informative

      A wet sponge would make for a more effective killing machine, a dry sponge (at least as presented theatrically in The Green Mile) makes it less efficient at killing, so there's a lot more pain/torture.

      --
      500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
  7. Planning for the Countersuit by Magickcat · · Score: 5, Funny

    After all, they need to save their cash for the money they'll loose when it comes to the countersuits after they loose. All in all, it's great to see SCO planning ahead.

    I want first dibs on an official SCO ergonomic chair when the sell off comes around.

    --

    Si tacuisses philosophus mansisses. If you had kept quiet, you would have remained a philosopher.

    1. Re:Planning for the Countersuit by tomhudson · · Score: 5, Funny
      I want first dibs on an official SCO ergonomic chair ...
      I hear they're made out of wood, with arm and leg straps, and a metal cap with a hood, all connected to some big dynamo.

      Don't you mean you want first dibs on throwing the switch?

  8. like deja vu al over again by Fishstick · · Score: 4, Informative

    SCO Caps Legal Expenses At $31 Million
    Posted by timothy on Wednesday September 01, @10:08AM
    from the nice-prime-number-of-millions dept.

    --

    There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
    Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.

  9. Welcome to September by pez · · Score: 4, Informative

    News.com story

  10. Math time! by Lord_Slepnir · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Alright, so this crap has been going on for about 18 months now. A bit longer, but let's just say 18 for a round number. That has cost them $12 million. Thier cap is $31 million. 31 / 12 = 2.58. Now we multiply that by how long they've done this, so 2.58 * 18 = 46.5 months, or a little over 2 more years, assuming they keep spending the way they are now

    This is less than encouraging

    1. Re:Math time! by InfiniteWisdom · · Score: 4, Informative

      Not quite....they have reached an agreement with the lawfrm to cap their bill at 31m. Not that they will fire their attorneys and call it quits once the bill hits 31m. Their attorneys may get a little less enthusiastic once they hit the cap, but the litigation itself will continue.

  11. Linux is not relevant to this - two man scam by dbIII · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It may as well have been some secret snake oil formula at stake. I see the whole thing of the CEO of a small company setting up an unwinnable court case against IBM as a way to funnel funds into the family pockets. Stay tuned for SCO to implode and Darl to sue for what he can get from it's smoking corpse. If legal dogs chase, Darl will simply funnel the funds somewhere inaccessable, pretend he is bankrupt, and blame it all on those kids and their darn penguin destroying the American way.

  12. Wow. by philovivero · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I thought SCO were a bunch of scam artists. Looks like the lawyers are the ones running the scam. $31 million for a clearly fraudulent case. Nice.

    Surely it must be hard for these guys to go home and sleep at night?

    --
    fifth sigma, inc.
    1. Re:Wow. by evilroot · · Score: 5, Funny

      Are you kidding? I know if it were me I wouldn't lose a minute of sleep for taking large amounts of money from SCO! And I have MORALS!

  13. In Other News... by Kurt+Wall · · Score: 4, Funny

    Darl McBride announced today that he would sell licenses to use his face on Halloween masks. The licenses will reportedly be available for $695.00 and come with a guarantee that you won't be sued.

    ...until he changes his mind.

  14. Yikes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Why do I keep seeing the Disney logo in that caldera logo? why doesnt Mickey Mouse sue them into oblivion?

  15. Suing IBM is 'patently' insane by gelfling · · Score: 4, Funny

    IBM has over 400 people on the payroll who do nothing but look at other companies to sue for possible intellectual property infringement.

    IBM fought the United States government for more than 20 fucking years to a stalemate in their antitrust case.

    Taking on IBM is a little more crazy than taking on entire Chinese Army.

    1. Re:Suing IBM is 'patently' insane by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Taking on IBM is a little more crazy than taking on entire Chinese Army.

      Yeah, no kidding.

      The Chinese army has nukes, but nobody will use nukes because they destroy so many lives and businesses, wipe out economies, and make areas uninhabitable for decades.

      IBM has lawyers, and everyone uses lawyers as a first strike, despite the fact that they destroy so many lives and businesses, wipe out economies, and make areas uninhabitable for decades.

      The question is, is it better to elect a rich businessman from a large multinational, or a lawyer? I would have rather voted for a plumber, they take all your money, but at least leave you with a working shitter.

  16. 31 million eh? by deek · · Score: 4, Informative

    And afterwards, Boies et al will be able to buy SCO outright, for all it will be worth. With plenty of change left over.

  17. easy way out by sPaKr · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Any one else wonder if SCO is just setting themselfs an easy out later? I mean when this doesnt go SCOs way and they hit the cap all Darl has to say is 'We would have won if we had more time and money' then he keeps the shadow over linux serving his Micky$oft masters. Since this was never about making money only hurting linux, I suspect this is a winning stratgy in the end. All MS has to say is point to some shlep that buys up the reminants of SCO and say they can sue you, this was never settled. Lets hope SCO implodes and someone like IBM or Novell buys them for pennies on the dollar and kills this lawsuit business.

  18. on top of it all, SCO is nepotistic by MMHere · · Score: 4, Informative
    To top it all off, SCO is nepotistic.

    The above mentioned, Kevin McBride, is brother to Darl McBride acording to this Computer Shopper News article.

    So even if Darl fails in his quest to sue every sentient being (and SCO dies), he will have kept lots of money in the family.

  19. Time == $$$$ by hwestiii · · Score: 4, Informative

    So this can go on approximately 1 1/2 times as long as it has so far? That's good news?

  20. A cap? Don't they mean a cork? by AndroidCat · · Score: 4, Funny

    "I'll never forget the look on that poor monkey's face as it tried to put that cork back in." (from that pig joke)

    --
    One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
  21. I spoke with David Boies yesterday by tuxlove · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yesterday David Boies (SCO's lead attorney) was on the Ronn Owens show on KGO-AM, taking calls from listeners. The topic was supposed to be his new book, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to hear his justification for his horrible work with SCO. So I called and asked him.

    He seemed a little daunted by my opening, in which I told him I had lost all respect for him. When faced with the question of "Why!?", he predictably said "everyone's entitled to a defense". Never mind that SCO's on the *offense*... His justification basically boiled down to the simple, "the courts will decide if SCO's claims are legitimate". In other words, he doesn't give a shit. He just wants the money, win or lose.

    I have worked with attorneys before, more than once, and the ones I worked with didn't want a case unless it seemed somewhat meaningful, and definitely very winnable. The money was important, but reputation was moreso. Bad reputation translates to less money for the shortsighted, quite often.

    I guess this simply shows he's a whore, moreso than most attorneys.