CLINTON LEGACY CONTINUES Judge okays IPO fraud claims: Damages may be in billions for 55 banks

Liars-- and Sleaze, Incorporated... ( my files on the clintons and friends )

The Holiday *Best* of Bill Clinton & his Friends!

FOB and FOFOB... the clinton friend files

Hodgepodge O' Hillary

In a win for millions of disgruntled investors, a federal judge said the nation's top investment banks must defend against claims they rigged the IPO frenzy of the late 1990s. The 55 banks, including Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse First Boston, had hoped Manhattan Federal Judge Shira Scheindlin would accept their request to dismiss the accusations.

Her refusal yesterday means the banks must either settle the civil charges or go before a jury.

Lead plaintiff's attorney Melvyn Weiss said he estimated damages could reach as high as "many billions" of dollars.

"Now the floodgates of discovery are opened wide," Weiss said, applauding the ruling. "We're finally going to get into the books and records, what I refer to as the bowels of the investment bankers' [IPO] marketing activities."

The civil allegations actually comprise hundreds of separate cases naming 55 underwriters and 309 tech and Internet companies as defendants.

The general accusation is that the defendants "artificially" supercharged IPOs with schemes that ensured stratospheric first-day pops, hid research analysts' conflicts-of-interest and enriched a few.

One alleged scheme required that well-connected investors invited to buy pre-IPO shares of a particular company also commit to buying full-price shares soon after they hit the open market, creating the illusion of strong demand for an offering and feeding the runaway Internet bubble, the complaint states.

IPO companies named in the investor complaint included Global Crossing, Agency.com, MP3.com, Buy.com, eToys.com and DrKoop.com.

Scheindlin's 238-page ruling wasn't a decision on merits of the case, rather a decision that investors provided enough material to support some of their claims. If the allegations are true, the bankers' conduct "was so obviously manipulative that it could not have been done inadvertently," she wrote.

A spokesman for Goldman Sachs declined to comment. A CSFB spokesman said his firm was reviewing the decision.

Experts expect the banks to enter into settlement talks rather than allow attorneys to poke through their records and risk a drawn-out courtroom battle.

"At this point the investment banks have to think seriously about settling," Adam Pritchard, a securities law professor at the University of Michigan told Reuters. "If they lose (at trial) damages could be in the billions."

The SEC and the NASD have been probing bubble-era IPOs for more than a year. FleetBoston and Credit Suisse First Boston have paid million to settle allegations they improperly distributed hot IPO shares.

The SEC and the NASD have been probing bubble-era IPOs for more than a year. ......IPO companies named in the investor complaint included Global Crossing, Agency.com, MP3.com, Buy.com, eToys.com and DrKoop.com.

Global Crossing named in bubble-era IPO scams? I'm shocked, Shocked (/end Claude Rains impersonation). And where were the co-presidents Clinton during all of this?

We now know that Hitlery was drumming up support for her Senate bid by selling pardons to voting blocs - a bunch of terrorists, crooks, thieves and scam artists (her faithful constituency), and BillyBoy was getting it on with internmonica and other sluts.

The problem is that the law firm in this case is the notorious Milberg Weiss, heavily connected to the DNC!!

Suit Filed Against Officers and Directors of Global Crossing, Ltd.

February 14, 2002

- Milberg Weiss today announced that a class action has been commenced in the United States District Court for the Central District of California on behalf of purchasers of Global Crossing Ltd. ("Global Crossing") (NYSE:GX) publicly traded securities during the period between February 14, 1999 and October 4, 2001 (the "Class Period"), including those persons who acquired Global Crossing common stock pursuant to a merger which closed on September 28, 1999 betwee Global Crossing and Fronteir Corporation. If you wish to discuss this action or have any questions concerning this notice or your rights or interests, please contact plaintiff's counsel, William Lerach or Darren Robbins of Milberg Weiss at 800/449-4900 or via e-mail at wsl@milberg.com.

The complaint charges certain of Global Crossing's officers and directors with violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Due to its recent bankruptcy filing, Global Crossing is not named as a defendant in the action. The complaint alleges that during the Class Period, defendants issued false and misleading statements and press releases concerning Global Crossing's financial statements, their ability to offset declining wholesale demand for bandwidth capacity with higher-margin, customized data services and the Company's ability to generate sufficient cash revenue to service its debt. During the Class Period, before the disclosure of the true facts, the Individual Defendants and certain Global Crossing insiders sold their personally held Global Crossing common stock generating more than $1.5 billion in proceeds and the Company raised over $7 billion in debt and equity offerings.

However, the full extent of Global Crossing's cash flow crisis, and its failure to compete in the market for customized communications services, began to emerge on October 4, 2001. On that date, the Company issued a string of stunning announcements: cash revenues in the third quarter would be approximately $1.2 billion, $400 million less than the $1.6 billion expected by a consensus of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial/First Call. The cash revenue shortfall was purportedly the result of a "sharp falloff" in wholesale IRU sales to carrier customers. The Company further announced that it expected recurring adjusted EBITDA to be "significantly less than $100 million" compared to forecasts of $400 million. Following these announcements, Global Crossing's share priced plunged by 49% to $1.07 per share.

Plaintiff seeks to recover damages on behalf of all purchasers of Global Crossing publicly traded securities during the Class Period (the "Class"). The plaintiff is represented by Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach LLP, who has expertise in prosecuting investor class actions and extensive experience in actions involving financial fraud.

Global X.....announced that it expected recurring adjusted EBITDA to be "significantly less than $100 million" compared to forecasts of $400 million.

EBITDA was the accounting trick that killed WorldCom. The reliance of the '90s bull market on the EBITDA financial metric's infallibility is proving to be a mistake.

During the corrupt Clinton-era Bubble years, all the players - professional and amateur investor alike — regarded EBITDA as the more reliable indicator of a company's financial health than the old reliable - net income.

EBITDA's acceptance was based on the assumption that it was the financial equivalent of a tamper-proof padlock.

Or as AlGore was wont to say.....a lockbox.

I would like to have Gramps' take on this.

Mud commented on this new reality for the scumbag left wing lunatic CEO's and CFO's yesterday.

In spite of all the nay sayers, SEC inspite of a very bad boss for awhile has been very busy nailing the Clintoon donating criminal CEO's and CFO's.

It will take us at least a year to flush out and down into the irrelevant cesspool these criminal CEO's and CFO's.

Makes one wonder if the tenacles of these IPO shams will be connected to CalPers.

We must remember whenever these crooks get caught, they represent billions of $ of phoney assets. This has a temporary negative impact on our stock market at first.

Each crooked company flushed out and down will good for our stock market.

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