Wow - that's an incredible article. Thanks for posting it here. Hopefully, the truth comes out and it doesn't quietly settle.
There are wild allegations on both sides, but reading that, one comes away with a feeling of the power on both sides of these issues.
Take a look at this list and you will see at least one person who formerly was very active on this website.
Stranger still is what Fairfax says is the source of the letter: A cabal of hedge fund managers -- among them James Chanos, Steven Cohen, Daniel Loeb, David Rocker and Adam Sender -- hoping to profit from a slump in Fairfax stock. Fairfax, which has a history of accounting lapses, sued eight hedge fund firms for racketeering in July 2006, demanding $6 billion in damages.
The insurer says the letter to Parker, excerpts of which were included in its complaint, was just one of many dirty tricks the fund managers used to smear the company, which has 8,000 employees and $26.8 billion of assets. The hedge funds deny wrongdoing.
MI4
At the heart of this story is a freelance research analyst named Spyro Contogouris, whose previous -- and often contentious -- dealings have ranged from Houston real estate to Nigerian natural gas. Until recently, Contogouris, 46, ran a firm that sounded more cloak-and-dagger than stocks-and-bonds: MI4 Reconnaissance LLC, based in New Orleans.
Fairfax says the hedge fund firms paid Contogouris and MI4 employee Max Bernstein to send out slanderous reports about the insurer and to harass its executives. |
