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Post by siriusnews on Mar 8, 2012 21:00:10 GMT -5
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Post by siriusnews on Mar 8, 2012 22:53:35 GMT -5
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Post by siriusnews on Mar 8, 2012 22:56:23 GMT -5
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Post by siriusnews on Mar 8, 2012 23:01:02 GMT -5
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Post by siriusnews on Mar 8, 2012 23:26:20 GMT -5
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Post by siriusnews on Mar 9, 2012 11:37:02 GMT -5
Goldman Sachs, Bank of America Documents on Overstock Ordered Unsealed
By David Voreacos - Mar 8, 2012 11:39 AM ET
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Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) and Bank of America Corp. documents that were deemed confidential in a lawsuit filed against them by Overstock.com Inc. (OSTK) must be made public, a state court judge in San Francisco ruled.
The case involves a 2007 lawsuit by Overstock, an online retailer, claiming that the banks manipulated its stock from 2005 to 2007, causing its shares to fall. State Court Judge John Munter dismissed the case on Jan. 10, ruling that the conduct took place outside of California. Overstock appealed, and also asked Munter to make public those documents he put under seal.
Munter granted Overstock’s request to make public a large chunk of documents, ruling Goldman Sachs and Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch & Co. “failed to demonstrate an overriding interest that overcomes the right of public access to the records.” He said the transactions are at least four years old, and much of the material was discussed at a Jan. 5 hearing.
“The subject matter of this action is of substantial public interest,” Munter ruled. “This case concerns publicly traded securities and the operation of the national securities markets, and those are of great public interest.”
Financial Data
Munter also ruled that other documents dealing with a “staggering amount of financial data,” should remain under court seal. Those exhibits to court filings are “laced with identifying information about hundreds of thousands of financial transactions of third parties” not connected to the litigation.
David Wells, a spokesman for New York-based Goldman Sachs, declined to comment on the ruling.
Bill Halldin, a spokesman for Charlotte, North Carolina- based Bank of America, said in an e-mailed statement that the bank is reviewing the decision.
“Our primary goal has been to ensure that the confidentiality of sensitive client information be protected,” Halldin said.
Salt Lake City-based Overstock claims that large portions of its stock was the subject of naked shorting, where investors sell shares they don’t own in anticipation of making a profit by paying for the stock after its price has fallen.
The clearing operations at Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch, the brokerage acquired by Bank of America in 2009, intentionally failed to locate and deliver borrowed shares for clients, allowing the firms to earn fees and interest on phantom securities transactions, lawyers for Overstock said in court filings. Overstock sought millions of dollars in damages against Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch.
Market ‘Flaws’
Overstock Chief Executive Officer Patrick Byrne was “thrilled” with the judge’s ruling, he said in a statement.
“I could not imagine that a post-2008 public would be denied access to this evidence, which displays in living color the flaws in our capital markets and in the regulatory structure that governs them,” he said.
“Now the public will have a window through which to view this evidence and judge for itself the fraudulent and systematically risky behavior at issue in this case,” he said.
Four media organizations, including Bloomberg LP, the New York Times, Wenner Media and The Economist, intervened in the case and joined Overstock’s motion for the unsealing.
The case is Overstock.com v. Morgan Stanley, CGC-07-460147, Superior Court of California, San Francisco.
To contact the reporter on this story: David Voreacos in Newark, New Jersey at dvoreacos@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Hytha at mhytha@bloomberg.net
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Post by siriusnews on Mar 9, 2012 11:37:43 GMT -5
feel free to send info to these reporters and their email address is listed at end of article above
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Post by siriusnews on Mar 14, 2012 14:35:14 GMT -5
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