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).
This is pretty much correct. VA Linux, with respect to the allegations in the complaint, had two responsibilities: 1) to file a correct registration statement in order to do a public offering, and 2) to keep its prospectus correct when it's selling the shares. Many facts are required on reg statements and prospectuses, especially for an IPO'ing company, and they have to be correct. The plaintiffs are alleging that CSFB's practices were not reported correctly and honestly on the prospectus and reg statement. This gives rise to the sections 11 and 12 counts. Also, because of these counts, a section 15 count can be thrown in, for Augustin and Schull. As for the allegation that plaintiffs paid artificially increased prices, this is coverd by the 10b violation, which is a general anti-fraud measure that has a very broad net for liability. Note that this is only against CSFB, though.
So you can see that VA Linux isn't being sued for what CSFB did; it's being sued for not telling investors (and the SEC) that CSFB would do what it did. This is how the securities laws work -- it tries to scare people into being honest and being vigilant by making everyone involved liable.
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.
Realize that bail is not necessarily keyed to the status of the crime. It's a rough estimate of the cost of a potential future commission of the same crime by letting this person out of jail, together with the probability that the person will actually do it again. I think that the judge probably thought that "hackers" hack all the time with impunity and figured the cost of damage of the probable hacking would be high.
Yes, they can. It's happened several times over the last 50 years; check the article in yesterday's WSJ talking about different electoral college scenarios.
It has encouraged Intel's innovation. Look at it from Intel's perspective, not the perspective of someone trying to compete with them.
Right -- the whole point is to protect the right of the innovator to PROFIT from the invention. Don't forget that the patent system requires the inventor to file detailed documents describing the invention, and that EVERYONE -- including the competitors -- can see them. The patent system is designed to encourage full disclosure of innovations, in return for a limited monopoly. What's wrong with that?
And "Coke" was *first* registered in 1945: Word Mark COKE Owner Name (REGISTRANT) COCA-COLA COMPANY, THE Owner Address P.O. DRAWER 1734 ATLANTA GEORGIA 30301 CORPORATION DELAWARE Serial Number 71-468708 Registration Number 0415755 Filing Date 03/27/1944 Registration Date 08/14/1945 It's been pointed out that "Coke" is owned by Coca-Cola pretty much everywhere, so they can always defend it, no matter where. The interesting point is about the use of trademark in the same industry. The problem with domain names is that it's an extremely scarce resource -- there's only one coke.[whatever] in each hierarchy. That pretty much kills off that one aspect of patent law. So the question is, is trademark law the governing law in this situation? Who knows. Trademark law is very locally geographical in nature -- and there are no local geographic bounds on the Internet. Very very interesting stuff... BTW, "Coke" is not part of the English language like Xerox or Band-Aid. Those refer to the generic product of a copy/copier or a self-adhesive bandage. No one would use the word "Coke" to refer to "cola". Otherwise, "Coke" and Pepsi or your supermarket brand cola would be interchangeable to people. It's clearly not.
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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).
This is pretty much correct. VA Linux, with respect to the allegations in the complaint, had two responsibilities: 1) to file a correct registration statement in order to do a public offering, and 2) to keep its prospectus correct when it's selling the shares. Many facts are required on reg statements and prospectuses, especially for an IPO'ing company, and they have to be correct. The plaintiffs are alleging that CSFB's practices were not reported correctly and honestly on the prospectus and reg statement. This gives rise to the sections 11 and 12 counts. Also, because of these counts, a section 15 count can be thrown in, for Augustin and Schull. As for the allegation that plaintiffs paid artificially increased prices, this is coverd by the 10b violation, which is a general anti-fraud measure that has a very broad net for liability. Note that this is only against CSFB, though.
So you can see that VA Linux isn't being sued for what CSFB did; it's being sued for not telling investors (and the SEC) that CSFB would do what it did. This is how the securities laws work -- it tries to scare people into being honest and being vigilant by making everyone involved liable.
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.
Realize that bail is not necessarily keyed to the status of the crime. It's a rough estimate of the cost of a potential future commission of the same crime by letting this person out of jail, together with the probability that the person will actually do it again. I think that the judge probably thought that "hackers" hack all the time with impunity and figured the cost of damage of the probable hacking would be high.
Yes, they can. It's happened several times over the last 50 years; check the article in yesterday's WSJ talking about different electoral college scenarios.
It has encouraged Intel's innovation. Look at it from Intel's perspective, not the perspective of someone trying to compete with them.
Right -- the whole point is to protect the right of the innovator to PROFIT from the invention. Don't forget that the patent system requires the inventor to file detailed documents describing the invention, and that EVERYONE -- including the competitors -- can see them. The patent system is designed to encourage full disclosure of innovations, in return for a limited monopoly. What's wrong with that?
And "Coke" was *first* registered in 1945: Word Mark COKE Owner Name (REGISTRANT) COCA-COLA COMPANY, THE Owner Address P.O. DRAWER 1734 ATLANTA GEORGIA 30301 CORPORATION DELAWARE Serial Number 71-468708 Registration Number 0415755 Filing Date 03/27/1944 Registration Date 08/14/1945 It's been pointed out that "Coke" is owned by Coca-Cola pretty much everywhere, so they can always defend it, no matter where. The interesting point is about the use of trademark in the same industry. The problem with domain names is that it's an extremely scarce resource -- there's only one coke.[whatever] in each hierarchy. That pretty much kills off that one aspect of patent law. So the question is, is trademark law the governing law in this situation? Who knows. Trademark law is very locally geographical in nature -- and there are no local geographic bounds on the Internet. Very very interesting stuff... BTW, "Coke" is not part of the English language like Xerox or Band-Aid. Those refer to the generic product of a copy/copier or a self-adhesive bandage. No one would use the word "Coke" to refer to "cola". Otherwise, "Coke" and Pepsi or your supermarket brand cola would be interchangeable to people. It's clearly not.