Thanks for the link to the letter from the lawyer.
Here are my impressions:
Full marks for entertaining and imaginative bluster content. Bonus points for liberal use of weasel words. Marked down for lack of informed, reliable commentary.
If the substance of this rebuttal (minus the bluster) had been officially released by Westfort I would have placed much more stock in it. I've seen other company's make official comment when they've been unfairly attacked. Why hasn't Westfort?
Why did Harvey (reportedly) write:
"I wish to reiterate that this refutation is solely my product and that Westfort, Canadian Delta, their officers, employees, agents or representatives have no part in this paper."
I'm guessing that Westfort deliberately made themselves unavailable because they didn't want the rebuttal to be burdened by the things they know and Harvey doesn't.
Let me illustrate what I'm getting at with a hypothetical example. I want to raise money to bottle water from a spring on my property. The water is contaminated with salt. This is a problem, but I think that I can probably make a marginal profit (at least enough to cover my wages) if only I can raise enough capital for the plant. I hire a PR firm and hype the profits to be made from selling bottled water, always talking about the almost limitless supply of water and always skipping over a detailed breakdown of the costs. Just when things are looking good, an analyst publicizes his estimate of the high costs involved. I know that many of the analyst's points are valid. Should I: a) Issue a press release telling the truth that, yes, the analyst has a point, b) Issue a release contradicting the analyst but also contradicting things which I believe to be true, or c) get my lawyer, who knows much less than I do about the true processes and costs involved to go it alone with the rebuttal?
I don't have the time to go through everything in the rebuttal, so I'll just pick one lonely line:
imagine and fabricate procedures that I've never heard of
Imagine and fabricate, in everyday language, have very negative overtones. If I say that someone has imagined and fabricated something, you almost automatically think that I'm calling them a liar. However, a lawyer would probably point out that they do not necessarily mean anything of the sort. I imagine that I drove about 50 miles today. It's probably not exactly accurate, but it's pretty close. Using some equations and reasonable assumptions about mileage insurance, maintenance and the like, I fabricate the estimate that my total costs of driving that distance was about $25. Again, perhaps not exact, but still a good estimate based on imagination and fabrication. Your lawyer, who has never heard of even half the costs of driving a car[1], can truthfully say that I imagine and fabricate procedures that he's never heard of.
But so what? He's only highlighting his own ignorance.
Could Westfort's experts made similar statements out if ignorance? For all shareholders here, I hope not. No, their official rebuttal would be very different. And I'm betting that's exactly why we have no official rebuttal.
Mike
[1] In my illustration, the lawyer claims to be very familiar with cars. He's probably seen millions of them during his lifetime of walking to work, but he's never driven a car let alone owned one; although, I will allow that his friend sometimes gives him a lift. |
