Mr. Nachtrab is being too loose with his language. The court in Cassava's defamation action held that IF PROVEN by supporting evidence, some of the statements could be found to have been defamatory. As you'll recall, I was skeptical of the lawsuit for a number of reasons, including what I regarded as the sloppy work done by Cassava's supposedly hotshot attorneys. They got rightfully humiliated by the Magistrate Judge in her initial Report and Recommendation - which the judge subsequently endorsed as supporting dismissal of most of the claims - and it only got worse after that as the defendants continued to challenge Cassava's claims by careful and persistent analysis that in my view, exposed the claims' frailties. Cassava has now voluntarily dismissed its defamation action, a (belatedly) wise move; a good summary of that case's brief life and agonizing but inevitable death can be found at pages 5-7 of the current lawsuit against Cassava: gov.uscourts.nysd.626057.1.0_1.pdf (courtlistener.com)
That current lawsuit brought by the prior defendants in the defamation action is essentially an "abuse of process" case, brought under the aegis of New York's "anti-SLAPP" statute (many states have them, and they stand as a bulwark against baseless lawsuits that seek to wrongfully curtail a person's right free speech on a matter of public interest). Given that Barbier was fired right around the time that Cassava decided to bail on its defamation lawsuit, I would not take the current action against Cassava lightly. Stated another way, one can readily infer that Cassava's current leadership recognizes it as the quagmire that it clearly is. I'm not saying that it's a threat to the company's survival (insurance will cover its defense and any settlement or indemnity) but it's another needless distraction.
I was always quizzical about what motivated the BOD to authorize the defamation action, because I could not have imagined that Barbier was allowed to do that on his own and without BOD approval. I also wondered what role Chris Cook (the General Counsel hired in October of 2022) played in that decision. I was positive on this being hired because he is "the real deal" as a skilled litigation attorney, so I'm curious about how much blowback he might get on the defamation action's initiation; if he ends up leaving the company soon, that will be a signal that the new regime wants to completely disinfect the company from the effects of that case, and all who had anything to do with it will be treated as if they are radioactive.
Tomorrow's 8:30 a.m. conference call is likely to be interesting, which reminds me of this ancient Chinese curse: "may you live in interesting times". |
