The Kiss of Death?
More than a year ago, we noted that a new blog, authored by a plaintiff side law firm had appeared. As quickly as it was noticed, it was gone.
Well, we are happy to say that another plaintiff side law firm has decided to start a securities litigation focused blog.
PomTalk, "The Blog for Institutional Investors," is a collaborative effort put out by Pomerantz Haudek Block Grossman & Gross, a/k/a "The Pomerantz Law Firm."
Welcome to the blogosphere, PomTalk. Try and stick around...
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Tuesday, October 2, 2007 |
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Welcome to Securities Litigation Watch's New Address
Welcome to the new home (and address) of Securities Litigation Watch.
We have been integrated into the newly rebranded RiskMetrics Group.
Please drop us a line if you experience any difficulties with the RSS feeds, subscriptions, or anything else.
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Thursday, August 23, 2007 |
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We're Back (again)
Dear Reader:
Sorry for the radio silence. To paraphrase Yogi Berra, life has a funny way of keeping you busiest when you have the least time for it. But now that our cloning project has been successful, regular posting by Adam #3 will begin again.
Thanks for hanging in there.
Adam
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Sunday, February 11, 2007 |
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Welcome Back
Welcome to the new, freshly updated Securities Litigation Watch.
I am your new host, Adam Savett, and I'm the Vice President, Product & Market Segment Manager for Securities
Class Action Services at ISS.
A number of you may have read my musings on securities litigation at my old blog, Lies, Damn Lies, & Forward Looking Statements.
For those that are not readers of my old blog, or former colleagues, I'll take a brief moment to introduce myself.
I am a recovering attorney, having spent the past six years as a practicing securities litigator at firms in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. During that time I represented and advised institutional investors, including public and private pension funds as well as Taft-Hartley plans, in all aspects of securities litigation, and had primary day-to-day responsibility for my firm’s institutional investor portfolio monitoring programs.
Now I manage the suite of Securities Class Action Services products for ISS. These products make ISS the only firm that delivers a complete, outsourced class-action service to specifically help institutional investors meet their fiduciary responsibilities.
The purpose of this blog is to both educate and entertain as we discuss the wild and sometimes wacky world of securities litigation. Readers are strongly encouraged to send in story ideas or tips or even guest posts if a topic is near and dear to your heart.
And so, without further adieu, let the blogging begin...
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Monday, October 23, 2006 |
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Life "Above the Law"
Nathan Carlile of the Legal Times has this lengthy and occasionally quite funny profile of David Lat, who writes the Above the Law blog we previously discussed here.
Reflecting upon Lat's highly unusual journey that has led to him to a career as a legal blogger, the article concludes by comforting us that
if this doesn’t last — and if, eventually, Lat’s story becomes just the familiar cautionary tale about a federal prosecutor who poses as a woman to post gossip on the Internet only to be exposed by a New Yorker writer and sign a lucrative blogging deal — he says things will still be OK.
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Thursday, September 21, 2006 |
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"Dealbreaker" and "Above the Law"
Looking for a way to spend some of that spare non-billable time while still staying firmly on topic? Check out Dealbreaker.com and AbovetheLaw.com, two relatively new sister blogs that cover the "gossip"/cocktail party discussion-side of Wall Street and law, respectively. We're just getting to know Above the Law, but Dealbreaker is already firmly on our good side due to its blanket coverage of SLW-favorites David Pajcin and Eugene Plotkin.
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Tuesday, August 15, 2006 |
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SLW Turns 3
Securities Litigation Watch entered the blogosphere 3 years ago today, with this rookie-caliber post about an SEC subpoena enforcement action against RJ Reynolds. These first 3 years of SLW-ing have been fun, educational, and rewarding in many ways, and I appreciate the many readers who have offered feedback and encouragement along the way.
Thanks!
Bruce Carton
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Tuesday, August 8, 2006 |
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Xethanol Watch!
Xethanol Corp., the first "skeweree" of the Mark Cuban-backed Sharesleuth.com, appears to have begun tanking today following the negative investigative piece posted yesterday by Sharesleuth.com. The stock was down over 13% on far greater-than-normal volume.
Will the Sharesleuth.com money machine actually work? Stay tuned!
| XETHANOL CORPORATION (AMEX:XNL) Delayed quote data |
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Monday, August 7, 2006 |
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Always the Maverick, Part II
As previewed here, the Mark Cuban-backed Sharesleuth.com issued its first investigative piece today, absolutely skewering a company called Xethanol Corp. You may recall the Sharesleuth.com concept discussed in the earlier post: Cuban backs the Sharesleuth.com investigations/journalism, and tells the world right up front that he is going to be trading and/or shorting the stocks discussed in the Sharesleuth.com articles in advance of the articles' publication. Indeed, today's article discloses that Cuban has already shorted 10,000 shares of Xethanol Corp.
So everything seems to be clicking along according to plan for Cuban and Sharesleuth.com (find a company to skewer--check; write the article--check; short the stock pre-publication--check; publish the article--check) except for one thing: despite the publication of the negative article at 10:05 am, the stock price has remained virtually unchanged (it closed at $6.95/share on Friday according to the article and closed today just 4 cents lower at$6.91/share, on below average volume).
What's the problem here with this sure-fire money machine? Why isn't the stock going down? Does the market not find the Sharesleuth.com analysis persuasive? Is nobody reading Sharesleuth.com yet?
Come on, people! Don't you realize that journalism paid for by short-sale profits can't sustain itself if the stock doesn't go down post-publication?
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Thursday, July 6, 2006 |
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Sharesleuth.com Launches
Mark Cuban's Sharesleuth.com, discussed in detail here, appears to have launched July 1. The site, which is laid out in blog format, says to look for its first investigative report in a "few weeks." There is no indication of what the report will be about but if you can figure out which securities Mark Cuban is buying in the next few weeks that should give you a pretty good idea!
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Thursday, June 15, 2006 |
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Switching to Feedburner
I've consolidated the RSS feeds for this blog into one Feedburner feed. Your existing RSS feed should continue to work, however, and this change should be invisible to you. That's a big "should," of course.
If you find that your RSS feed for Securities Litigation Watch is no longer working properly, kindly let me know in the comments or by email so I can try to fix anything I've broken!
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Monday, June 5, 2006 |
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Mr. 10b-5 Daily Moves On to LeBoeuf Lamb
Lyle Roberts, author of the excellent blog The 10b-5 Daily, has left Wilson Sonsini in favor of a partnership with the DC office of the law firm LeBoeuf Lamb. We learned about this from a post on his blog, of course (how else?).
Hopefully The 10b-5 Daily, which Lyle appears to have packed up and taken with him, will live on!
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Tuesday, April 25, 2006 |
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The Arrival of the CEO Blog
Way, way down the list of notable items about the departure of Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy and the announcement of Jonathan Schwartz as his replacement is this: there is now at least one high-profile CEO with an active blog. As discussed here and here, Schwartz is the author of Jonathan's Blog, which actively discusses goings-on over at Sun.
The naming of Schwartz as CEO leads to entertaining leads such as this one in the CNN article linked to above:
"In a Hail Mary move to save the company, Sun Microsystems has just appointed a ponytailed blogger as its CEO."
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Thursday, April 6, 2006 |
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SLW Denies Defunctness
Saw this post on Point of Law about a blog called Epiphany that compiled this list of defunct/inactive legal blogs and I visited the Epiphany site to see if the sorely-missed Corp Law Blog was on the list. Corp Law Blog was on the list...but Securities Litigation Watch was also on their list of "inactive legal blogs" that supposedly have had no new postings for more than a month!
Objection!
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Thursday, March 23, 2006 |
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SLW Contest
We're still working on getting those SLW T-Shirts so no there's real prize, but Total Consciousness will be awarded to the reader who can answer this way-too-obscure question involving useless information:
What "SEC first" that launched a trend that continues to this day occurred on September 1, 1998?
Clue: It relates to the Enforcement Division and the answer lies in this SEC Litigation Release.
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Tuesday, March 21, 2006 |
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New Securities Litigation Blog: "Lies, Damn Lies, & Forward Looking Statements"
Welcome to Adam Savett and his new blog "Lies, Damn Lies, & Forward Looking Statements," which sets out to be "a look at the wide world of securities litigation from the eyes of a plaintiffs' attorney."
If Adam is half as good at blogging as he is at winning blog contests such as this and this, "Lies, Damn Lies..." should be great.
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Monday, March 13, 2006 |
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SLW Lives
Sorry for the lack of posts here over the past week. SLW was down and out with the flu, despite the fact that SLW got a flu shot. But we're pretty much back in action, gathering strength, getting ready to post again when energy reaches "Blog Posting" levels (we're not there yet--energy currently has only reached "Posting about the possibility of posting soon" level. Big difference).
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Wednesday, February 22, 2006 |
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ISS Launches "Corporate Governance Blog"
ISS launched a new corporate governance blog today called, well, "Corporate Governance Blog." As ISS says in this press release,
The ISS Corporate Governance Blog is expected to be the Web’s most comprehensive compilation of institutional level corporate governance content, including information on emerging corporate governance trends, proxy voting, social and environmental issues, shareholder meeting commentary, compliance considerations and other areas of interest to both global institutional investors, corporate issuers and industry constituents.
I expect to contribute to this new blog periodically so there will likely be some securities litigation content on there, as well.
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Thursday, February 2, 2006 |
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"Schmoozing" Re-Defined
I recently recommended the now month-old "Let the Good Times Roll" blog written by venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki. As I mentioned, his blog's amusing tag-line reads,
"Blogger. n. Someone with nothing to say writing for someone with nothing to do."
On the "nothing to say" part, Kawasaki is just being modest because he consistently writes thought-provoking posts about his experiences in the business world. Yesterday, for instance, he wrote about the "Art of Schmoozing," and included the following definition of schmoozing that I found particularly interesting and even somewhat inspirational:
Understand the goal. Darcy Rezac in his book, The Frog and the Prince, wrote the world's best definition of schmoozing: “Discovering what you can do for someone else.” Herein lies eighty percent of the battle: great schmoozers want to know what they can do for you, not what you can do for them. If you understand this, the rest is just mechanics.
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Tuesday, January 31, 2006 |
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Welcome to "The Quant"
University of Maryland Law Professor Richard Booth has leaped into the blogosphere with his new blog, The Quant. His blog is "about the intersections of law, business, finance, economics, and statistics" and looks like it will include some interesting securities litigation material. And no, I'm not just saying this because (a) I was once Prof. Booth's student at Maryland Law School and (b) I later had the somewhat odd experience of taking his deposition as the opposing party's expert witness in a securities class action (true story).
His maiden post, entitled "The End of the Securities Fraud Class Action as We Know It" is a summary of a November 2005 article he published that argues that securities fraud actions should all be treated as derivative actions, and should be dismissed unless insiders have enjoyed gains from trading during the fraud. The full article can be downloaded here.
Good luck and have fun, Prof. Booth!
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Thursday, January 19, 2006 |
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The "Let the Good Times Roll" Blog
Interesting new blogs continue to pop up almost daily lately. My most recent discovery is Let the Good Times Roll, by "evangelist, entrepreneur, investment banker, and venture capitalist" (not to mention author) Guy Kawasaki.
I particularly like his definition of "blogger":
"Blogger. n. Someone with nothing to say writing for someone with nothing to do."
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Tuesday, January 17, 2006 |
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Welcoming "Truth on the Market" to the Blogosphere
A promising new business law blog went live today called "Truth on the Market." TOTM will "provide commentary on law, business, economics and more," including securities litigation.
The blog is written by six "young turk" professors who "teach and write in the business law area, broadly defined." They boldly add that
"We are aware of recent statements that blogging should be avoided by junior faculty. We are all junior faculty here and thus obviously disagree."
I like them already. Good luck, Truth on the Market.
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Wednesday, January 4, 2006 |
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WSJ's Law Blog: Good Stuff
Take a look at what is happening today with the WSJ's new Law Blog. This is exciting stuff and presents a model that should be eye-opening to people in both the mainstream media as well as the blog world.
This morning, blogs and news outlets reported on an interesting insider trading prosecution against a former securities trader who bought stock after learning confidential information about a planned corporate acquisition from his live-in girlfriend, an attorney at a major New York law firm who was working on the transaction. According to this SEC Litigation Release,
[O]n or before July 1, 2004, [Lee] Edelman learned about the acquisition negotiations while living with his girlfriend, an associate at a prominent New York law firm retained by Applied Materials. Edelman was present while the attorney, working in their apartment, reviewed deal documents and discussed the transaction on the phone with colleagues. Edelman used this information to secretly begin acquiring Metron shares beginning on July 1, 2004. Several days later, Edelman’s girlfriend directly told him that she was working on an acquisition of Metron, but cautioned him that he could not use the information for any purpose. Edelman agreed not to misuse the information. Unbeknownst to his girlfriend and despite their agreement, Edelman continued acquiring Metron shares.
All of the blogs and newspapers that I saw pretty much reported the facts above and moved on (although the San Francisco Chronicle threw in the juicy tidbit that shortly after after he betrayed his girlfriend's trust the boyfriend dumped her, to boot)! There was no indication in the earlier reporting as to which law firm was involved nor the circumstances behind the discovery of the trading.
But now into the fray comes the Law Blog. Presumably leveraging the resources of WSJ reporters or at least the WSJ name, the Law Blog threw this post on the fire earlier today:
Weil Gotshal confirmed to us that it represented Applied Materials in that deal and that the unnamed lawyer in the government’s complaint was an associate at their firm. In a prepared statement, a Weil spokesperson said, “Our former associate brought this matter to our attention when she saw Mr. Edelman’s name on a list of individuals who had traded in the stock which had been sent from the NASD as part of its routine market surveillance operations. The Firm and the associate then immediately brought this matter to the attention of the Securities & Exchange Commission.”
In short, the Law Blog model seems to be pretty powerful and the Law Blog apparently has a nice scoop in Day 3 of its existence.
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Tuesday, January 3, 2006 |
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WSJ Rolls Out the "Law Blog"
The WSJ has introduced an interesting new blog for 2006 called the "Law Blog." The Law Blog's mission? "To scour the universe for compelling stories in two related areas: business and law, and the business of law."
As I view a big part of SLW's "mission" to be the "business of securities litigation," I expect that the Law Blog will be an interesting source of information for SLW readers. The Law Blog's lead writer is Peter Lattman, formerly a reporter with Forbes Magazine (and a fellow recovering lawyer).
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Friday, December 16, 2005 |
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TypePad Down and Out
TypePad, the service that hosts this blog, was down and out for pretty much the whole day. Even now, none of the posts from this week are showing up on SLW (only the posts from December 8 or earlier are appearing below as I type this).
Please check back--hopefully they'll get their act together soon.
UPDATE: All posts are now appearing....
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Thursday, December 8, 2005 |
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