Re: Winfield Suit
Hi Harry,
I saw this in the annual report:
sec.yahoo.com
(Bold from me --d)
<<<<"...Litigation and Environmental Exposure
In the ordinary course of business, we become the subject of various claims and litigation. We maintain insurance to cover many of our potential losses and we are subject to various self-retentions and deductibles with respect to our insurance. Although we are subject to various ongoing items of litigation, we do not believe that any of the items of litigation that we are currently subject to will result in any material uninsured losses to us. It is, however, possible that an unexpected judgment could be rendered against us in cases in which we could be uninsured and beyond the amounts that we currently have reserved or anticipate incurring for that matter. ...">>>
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Of course none of us knows how this will work out. We don't have enough information to come to any conclusions as to fault/responsibility, what's covered by insurance, etc, imho. And we're not going to get that information under the circumstances. (That is, with litigation pending.)
I sure would be willing to bet against that $200 million figure though. That seems outrageously excessive. Did it cost you fellas $200 million to drill that well? I know it's deep, but $200 million deep? I'm no expert either, but I know that lawsuits sometimes ask for damages far in excess of actual loss for tactical reasons.
As for Wall St, you can be sure they've been sniffing all around this suit from day #1.
If they thought it a big risk for WFT, we'd have seen it in the price long before now.
Anyway, as I've said before, I hope you get a square deal from WFT or the courts.
If WFT was at fault, they or their insurance should make it right.
Got to say, tho, that it doesn't look like WFT thinks you've got a case.
As I understand it, they are not making any offers to settle or negotiating at all.
Is that your understanding also?
Hey Harry, how about if you buy some shrs of WFT?
Then you'd have this suit thing hedged! <VBG>
regards,
diana
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