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Court Rules Ellison Must Donate $100M to Charity
PokeyPenguin writes "As part of a settlement for insider trading allegations, a California judge has ordered that Larry Ellison donate $100 million to charity. CNet reports, 'The charity payments are an unusual way to settle such a case. Typically, settlement payments would go directly to the company, in this case Oracle. "But with Mr. Ellison owning a quarter of Oracle's stock, much of such a direct payment, in effect, would have gone to him."'"
September 12 was, erm, over six weeks ago--this news about the ending of the so-called "derivative law suits" was dealt with by Java Developer's Journal (and tens of dozens of other major technology publications) long ago. [from the article] "Unusual Settlement Arrangement Would End Derivative Lawsuits Once and For All, and Avoid a Trial"
Won't he get a tax break therefore saving money in the long run?
Yes! I listen to NYC Speedcore and do math at 3AM. I suggest you try it too.
It's called "Feed the Anyds." Seriously though, I'm hungry!
http://qwantz.com/index.pl?comic=667
Sure, he'll get a tax break, but he's only gonna get a little fraction of that back, and undoubtedly the judge in the case was aware of this. He'll still lose tens of millions of dollars/
Although the moon is smaller than the earth, it is farther away.
Representatives from Ellison's selected charity - the little-known 'Human Fund' - were unavailable for comment.
We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
Obviously i am no business genius but why does the payment be in a form that will add to the stock value? Can't the judge order Ellison to write out checks to the ones who suffered? :(
Also, the timestamp on the news.com.com site shows that this news is about 2 weeks old. Isn't that like a lifetime in the Internet age or is this a dupe post
so a quarter of the total parties damaged by Ellison's insider trading was.... Ellison. ohhh
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[insert funny
This is Martha how the heck did you do it? You don't even know how to decorate, your web site is way too drab...and that is not a good thing!
So the settlement was for 0.6% of his personal worth? Or bearly equivalent to a speeding ticket to a guy on $30,000 and he gets 5 years to pay it and no criminal record?
That's justice right there.
Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
Why not just exclude his stock from the distribution of the settlement. That way the people he screwed could still benefit from this settlement.
Mr. Ellison's favorite charity: LINUX !!!!!
Larry Ellison's new business plan:
1) Change Oracle's status to "Charity"
2) Donate $100B to the Oracle Charity Fund
3) Change Oracle's status back to "For Profit Corporation"
4) Profit!!!
There's something wrong up there though.... what could it be ??????
Me Ellison recently announced a $400M Dividend to be paid to shareholders
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
Ellison won't get a tax break. Although the payment is being made to a charity, it is not a charitable contribution. He is receiving legal consideration for the payment -- i.e., he is settling and discharing a debt. It would similar to the situation where you bought a used car from the charity, and paid them money in exchange. Your payment would not be a charitable contribution
More precisely, the charity is a third party beneficiary of a contract between the plaintiff(s) and Ellison to settle the case. It would be more like a case where "Seller" sells a car to you but, feeling charitable, writes the contract so you pay the money to the charity. In that case, if anyone got a deduction it would be "Seller" and not you.
Only Women Bleed (Sex, Sharia remix)
To - you have either done nothing wrong, and you are free, or you have done something wrong and have to pay for it. Maybe I'm just naiive, but how can it be "nothing wrong" and paying back money?
I hear most of it is going to Ellison's own Diplomas are for losers campaign.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
... Larry Ellison should have to put the $100M into a non-profit foundation that pays developers to improve PostgreSQL. Properly managed, that kind of money would easily fund a team of 50 developers for decades.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Here is a suggestion: the PosgreSQL project.
The judgement doesn't make sense to me.
Typically, if someone does something bad to someone, the person doing the bad has to compensate the harmed person.
So if Ellison did something bad to the shareholders, he should pay the shareholders.
The fact that Ellison is a shareholder too doesn't matter -- all it means is, in the big scheme of things Ellison did something bad to the minority shareholders.
So Ellison could just as easily compensate only the minority shareholders -- but only as much as he hurt them.
It doesn't make sense for the judge to say, "Oh my! This case is so complex, let's just have Larry flush some money down the toilet or give it to charity, and we'll call it even."
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
Not the same thing at all, though it doesn't stop the likes of Bill Gates mixing up the two. Seriously though if Ellison has to stump up the cash, he should strategically give it to open source projects where it would be the most benefit to Oracle.
but I think he won more than 100 million $ doing this insider trade. Small guys which steal 2 TVS get prison, he stole over 100 million and gets nothing.
1.) Only $100 million?
That's because no California court has ever awarded punitive damages in a derivative suit. Derivative suits, like this one, are about equity - not punishment.
2.) No criminal record?
Derivative suits are civil, not criminal.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur
Donate that $100 million to the Ubuntu folks.
No one on earth benefits from this lawsuit except the sharks. In the long run, Ellison would have donated the money to someone anyway. He can't and won't spend it all, and will just decrease his future donations by the same amount he was forced to donate.
The stockholders do not benefit, the charities do not benefit, Ellison does not benefit...
What a waste. The problem is that law schools are deliberately over-supplying the market with lawyers (we have several times as many as other nations, per capita). This results in not enough legitimate suits to go around. Stupid suits are the obvious result.
Perhaps we should sue the law schools for creating a "nuisance"...
He admits nothing, but other people believe he did something wrong. As Gerald Ford said when he granted Nixon's pardon: "I am compelled to conclude that many months and perhaps more years will have to pass before Richard Nixon could obtain a fair trial by jury", and "To procrastinate, to agonize, and to wait for a more favorable turn of events that may never come or more compelling external pressures that may as well be wrong as right, is itself a decision of sorts"
.
For someone like Ellison, paying $100 million is nothing compared to waiting years for a trial, even if he were considered "not guilty" in the end.
It has to be money and has to goto charity orginizations, not all non-profit are charity. In addition the board of directors of Oracle has to approve the charity and it will be given in Oracle's name not ellson.
From the article: "This provision makes an excellent settlement even better," Joseph Tabacco, the attorney who brought the case, said in a statement. Wow, who would have guessed it, a lawyer is happy to get $22 million!?
We live in a society of law, and the law is: he who has, gets.
Court wants Ellison to pay 100m to other Oracle shareholders.
Problem : Ellison owns 25% of Oracle.
Solution : Order him to pay 133m to Oracle.
This whole charity thing does not make sense.
It would be nice to be sure of anything the way some people are of everything.
If he owns 25% of the company then why not just make him pay the company $133M? He gets 25% back and the rest of the shareholders keep the rest - his total net payout being $100M. I suppose the would be lawyers were out writing sick notes and drafting up other excuses for why they couldn't attend their 7th grade algebra class.
Oh well, hopefully his choice of charity is something useful like the EFF.
We should be Lenient to Larry - As a member of tech force! Larry has clearly saved people on more than 1 occasion:
x /corp/media/en/tech_force_noemail?c=us&l=en&s=corp
http://www1.us.dell.com/content/topics/global.asp
Am I the only one to note that the legal fees in this affair amount to $22 million ? o.O Twenty-two million dollars ??? Ugh ..
We should all turn to becoming lawyers ..
I'd like to have this problem.
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
If he owns a quarter of the stock, why not make him pay that much more back... it's it's $100 million originally, have him donate $133.33 million, $33.33 of which would go to himself and then other 3 quarters would go to where it actually belongs...
I think your sig is supposed to be:
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur
L.E. owns 25% of a company; this means that 25% of every payment to the company will therefore, in effect, go to L.E. The other 75% of the company's owners are supposed to receive $100m a penalty for wrongdoing by L.E. How much money must L.E. pay to the company so that the other 75% of the owners receive their $100m?
Apparently, the court found this little problem too hard to solve.
As a student in the school of life (and a great follower of the BOFH) I follow the religion called "Order of the Shiny Aura" which requires you to give up all your worldly possessions to achieve the Shiny Aura of happiness! All my wages are directly sent to the church each month.
:)
Its a good thing i founded that religion myself 2 weeks ago. Its great for a slushfund, perfect for taxes and i can always claim religious days off whenever im on a bender from drinkies with suppliers
"Sarcasm is for *winners*, Alan." - Charlie Harper (Two and a Half Men)
One for the rich, one for the poor. Steal an TV, and you get locked up. Steal millions of dollars, and you get a fine. Kill some bozo, and you get executed. Kill a million bozos with Apache helicopters and white phosphorus, and you get an unfavourable poll rating.
It's one rule for the rich, and one rule for the poor.
Meine Schwester ist sehr, sehr reizvoll - Nietzsche
For a second I thought they meant Harlan Ellison, and I thought, "wow, $100 mil, what did the old curmudgeon say this time?!"
Math is hard.
If you think imaginary property and real property are the same, when does your house become public domain?
All true - but kind of funny that Larry pulls out his change purse and Martha wears the shackles. Is it just me, or do other people think Larry might actually have a man purse?
Now, if only he could make these payments like Microsoft... In vouchers for Oracle software.
Insider trading shouldn't be illegal.
I own corporations and the information I receive daily is very involved. There is nothing, though, that a stockholder couldn't learn by studying the market.
Just like blackmail laws, insider trading laws are attempting to stifle free expression. Congress has no right to make a law governing one's expression.
I hate how people support the court here. I don't invest in stocks because I know it is a scam. Why would you?
That's what, licenses for a cluster of 2 machines with 4 CPUs each?
sic transit gloria mundi
we all know the reason its on the front page of /. is becouse this ruling is simply not Fair
;/
however you look at this its wrong
I Predict A Riot
For karma's sake
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
All true - but kind of funny that Larry pulls out his change purse and Martha wears the shackles. Is it just me, or do other people think Larry might actually have a man purse?
Not that I'm defending Larry, but Martha wore the shackles for lying to the Feds, not the insider trading. I'm sure if she hadn't been so arrogant and just 'fessed up front, she would have received similar treatment.
Its a different rule for the productive and the non-productive.
Where is the benefit of locking up someone like Ellison? He can produce more while in society and someone can benefit from his money. Whereas the unproductive who usually are those engaged in petty crimes probably have no means other than jailhouse labor to payback society for the damage they cause.
As for what politicians do, hell there ain't no way for them to pay us back, we just have to hope the cost isn't to high that we pay for having them.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
And now none of it will go to the affected parties.
If aspiration is a virtue, achievement cannot be a vice.
Ellison's lawyers filed an appeal under the 8th Amendment when it was revealed that Ellison would have to give the $100m to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
What if it is just turtles all the way down?
Why wouldn't it be fair that he pay Oracle instead of charity? He would only be paying himself to the same extent that he originally stole from himself. This seems to diminish both his original crime and his subsequent punishment by the same amount. This doesn't seem fair to Oracle shareholders other than Mr. Ellison who were victims of the original crime but do not benefit from the resolution.
Take it from the stockholders, and give it to a charity.
Anyone know the fianancials of the charity ?
maybe the charity is larry ellisons cousin ?
There are a number of FOSS groups that could benefit from this. I nominate OpenOffice -- Larry could even launch a Foundation for OOo with this money and reap good press and longterm strategic advantage from the mess (which he's already done, of course, but he could get even more).
My first thought was OMG What have you done now Harlan.
Ohh, it's that Oracle guy. Good.
Also, may I suggest contibutions in part goto "The Help MrCopilot keep the Lights on Fund" PayPal Accepted.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
Martha is investiated for "insider trading" and it's judged she did ZNOT do it. But because she lied to a Federal Officer she is now convicted felon and served 6 months in jail. The court here finds Larry is guilty of "insider teading" and he apparently settles w/o a Felony conviction and with no jail time. Doesn't make any sense to me.
The logic here is strange and the share holders defrauded by the judge. If the goal is to make ellison 100 million poorer then this is simple:
x-0.25*x = 100 million
x = 133 million
So ellison should pay 133 million, he'll get 25% back in the book value of his stocks, and on paper be out 100 million.
On the otherhand if the idea is that oracle was defrauded 100 million, well then it's simple. He should give 100 million to oracle, regardless of his percent ownership since any injury he caused oracle came out of his pocket book too!.
Stupid decision.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I personally donate a healthy amount to charities, but to rule that someone must pay out to a charity just doesn't seem right to me. In my opinion a portion of the money to be paid out should have firstly gone to covering the state's costs for the trial (why should we pay for this idiot's mistake).
I honestly dont know what a good solution for disbursement of the money is here (and yes I know charity is great), but it just doesn't seem right to me to force someone to donate.
And yes I know that the charity receivers probably dont give a damn where the money is coming from as long it helps, but if I am not mistaken this guy has the choice of what charities to donate to. Wouldn't it be spiteful of him to donate it to a bunk charity, something like Save the Ants... (It could be a real charity, but one that in 99% of peoples opinion is not deserving...)
News Reporters Make Tasty Polar Bear Treats!
She was innocent of insider trading - at least the charges were dropped - but that didn't give her the right to claim it. You see, by denying it, she was revealing information that affected the price of her company's stock, and she didn't go through the right channels to do it, which is a crime.
Not that I'm defending Larry, but Martha wore the shackles for lying to the Feds, not the insider trading. I'm sure if she hadn't been so arrogant and just 'fessed up front, she would have received similar treatment.
Well, maybe. Wasn't she also on the board of the SEC at the time? That, to me, ups the ante somewhat in that she should be held to a higher standard. I don't know that it would be legal to do that, though... but at least ethically it seems to make sense.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
Martha Stewart benefits from insider trading to the tune of about $50,000 and gets a 2 year jail sentence.
Larry Ellison benefits to the tune of about $100 million (I gotta assume that the amount he offered to "get out of jail free" was about what he made on the deal) and he gets away with no time in jail whatsoever?
There may be laws in this country, but there ain't no justice!
Consider that the 25% that he owns was also affected by his own insider trading and dropped in value, effectively negating the "increase" you're concerned about.
In addition the board of directors of Oracle has to approve the charity and it will be given in Oracle's name not ellson.
The fact that the board is approving it doesn't much matter. My understanding is that these days, boards are stacked with CEOs or senior managment from other companies. These are the same people that keep elevating CEO salaries and other perks in order to stay "competitive". Each time this happens, they're essentially giving themselves a raise. They aren't looking out for shareholders, other than to do what is minimally necessary to avoid any lawsuits.
How much did Americans pay to bring Ellison to justice? How are we getting compensated for that? Ellison has $100M to pay, and billions more to spend. Why do these fines have to cost Americans so much money?
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make install -not war
His total 'fine' is $122m with $22m going to a band of lawyers who got together to sue him. I bet that 'charity' bit of the decision is really bugging them
She lied and even edited her note. Get over it. She lied. She doctored evidence. They only dropped the charges, because it was obvious she lied so why bother proving intent on the insider trading.
It's even simpler. Raise the fine to $133m. Then $100m will go to the shareholders excluding Larry.
just to be fair
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
"This whole charity thing does not make sense."
It does when you consider that California is the only US state that seems to understand that it's a good idea to be as friendly to your neighbour as possible.
By removing the money from Larry (who is super rich, and an extreme outlier on an income histogram) and giving it to a charity (instead of other rich, white men who also own the company), the poor folks whe live below poverty, and other people who desperately need help, stand a chance to see some of it.
In the US to understand, the entire system of government is built up in favour of letting a few rich people run the country and play as tiny gods, while everyone else fights over the scraps. California is becoming enough to the left that they're almost like Alberta (Canada's far-right) in terms of their social setup!
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Why is this moderated as Funny?
Could be quite a kick-start for the One Laptop Per Child campaign.
:v)
Vik
Why is this moderated as Funny?
;)
You've not had the joy of licensing Oracle Enterprise Edition, have you? Trust me, the mod is fair.
Why, oh why, didn't I take the Blue Pill?
That's precisely why it /isn't/ funny.
He should help us all out (at least us older techi types who are finding all the doors shutting because we are getting old!). The M-prize (methuzalha mouse prize) is the prize(s) for the first researchers hwo can demonstrate the stopping and reversing of the aging process in mice. Once that has been demonstrated, then it's a cinch for people to request that their governments then fund a manhattan styled program to cure aging. after all, in the future, young people will care less about biotech/nanotech as they will just pop a nano-pill when they reach 25-30 years and not have to worry about aging, its just like the current genration of you people accept cell phones and desktop PC's and really complicated OS's and programming languages that 35 years ago, you could only find in universities/big companies/military etc!
Coming Soon: the Larry Ellison Fund for Needy CEOs
Martha was on the board of the New York Stock Exchange, the SEC is a government agency.
..take away his boat and give it to Hasso Plattner:-)
I don't see any prosecutors knocking at his door.
Instead we got a pointless civil suit which benefits no one except the lawyers.
This is only pocket change for Larry. I used to work for him for 10 years I know this won't even put an dent in Larry's value.
Larry has many good lawyers working for him. Old Ray Ocampo was one of them. I remember that he had so many traffic tickets that there was an bench warrant for him but Ray somehow reduced the charges so he only had to pay the fine.... so much for justice for all.
That's a contradictory statement. If no one discloses their information, then no one is making an informed decision. It just seems like your statement is trying to justify lying by omission.
Well, contradictory or not ("anarchocapitalist" is one of the more obvious contradictions in dada21's repertoire), he's being serious.
One of the defining (and possibly most fundamental) characteristics of a market is that actors do not have access to (nor even equal opportunity to access) the same information. In fact, this is part of the reason why markets are grossly inefficient as allocative instutitions (viz., they are wasteful) and why they often yield antisocial outcomes (viz., how externalities arise).
The idea that free markets have or should have equally empowered actors isn't actually something the implementers of such markets believe nor desire. The prinicipal advantage of markets as an allocative institution is that information imbalance (among other kinds of imbalance) can be exploited to personal advantage. This is a libertarian's liberty. (Of course, it's not the whole extent of it, as other nonallocative institutions are integral to libertarian and "anarchocapitalist" thinking also, like private property -- something which is also not what you might think it is).
Markets are inherently classist and this is part of the reason why a term like anarchocapitalist makes no sense at all: anarchy is a synonym for classlessness, something which is incompatible with both market mechanisms and capitalist property relations.
What if the charity or charities that benifit from this settlement are objectionable to the stockholders who were harmed by Ellison's actions? After all one could reasonably argue that this money came out of their pockets.
For example, give the money to Handgun Control Inc. and you anger one group of people. Give it to the NRA and you upset the opposing group. Give to Planned Parenthood or NOW and the prolife crowd objects. Give to Operation Save America and the abortion rights advocates will scream bloody murder. The point is there are plenty of charities with agendas that fall into one political affiliation or the other.
Personally I think this settlement is flawed as it does nothing to compensate those actually harmed by Ellison's actions, and it can easily add insult to injury unless the money goes to the most politically benign charities possible.
That's ideal, I agree, but the trouble is what's bad for Microsoft is good for Oracle. But Oracle has taken Microsoft head-on in many markets, so what might hurt Microsoft the most (an OpenExchange-like project, say) would also hurt Oracle (say, CorporateTime). So, sure they could give it to some linux projects, but nothing that would help PostgreSQL too much. :) So the damage they could inflict on Microsoft in the OS/applications area might be minimal. But the OASIS group should leave a voicemail.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)