"And it's not clear what the damages are to GRNO - G&S's client - certainly not the loss in market value"
If that represents the strategic basis for the defense of G&S, then it is doomed to fail. If the insurance company chooses to stiff its client G&S on that basis, it leaves itself open to future long term liability and I don't think it would want that on its record. This country is over run with lawyers, but lawyer insurance isn't the mass market like home and auto insurance is.
That defense does not bear scrutiny in terms of practical logic and the large collection of tort lawyers involved in this seems to agree with me. The drop in the price of the stock represents real damage to GRNO and through that to the stockholders. The purpose of GRNO and the Carraways selling stock was to raise capital which was mostly put back into GRNO to fund its interests and operations. The price of the stock was crucial to GRNO's future. For example, a deal to buy a waste oil collector in Denver was based on the price of the stock. Processing waste oil is where the real long term profit lies. When the stock suddenly lost its value, the deal was called off
and that is an example of how the loss of stock value has damaged GRNO.
I also take strong exception to your term "sham deals". You can't apply today's conditions to those of 1 1/2 years ago. Then $1 million in cash, now large negative position. The price of oil is 20 some cents less a gallon now than it was then which would go directly to a plant's bottom line. These conditions make GRNO deals appear much more risky now than they were then.
True, it wasn't stated that executions of deals were contingent on all details of the Charleston plant's design being finished, but the basic proprietary technology was known to work and all that needed to be finished were the peripherals. These could have been swapped or added as the plants were installed.
I can't speak for all the prospective deals that were announced by GRNO, but I know the Research Fuels fell through when it was found that the technology of the process it was to be used for didn't work. That had nothing to do with GRNO's technology. I can't speak for Evans Systems or Midwest Fuels but I have reason to believe they were serious at the time as well.
You can't hold Bill Carraway accountable for the drop in the price of oil which has contributed to the destabilization of some economies, countries, and governments. And you can't hold him solely responsible for the royal screwing GRNO has taken by the legal system with all its high priced lawyers and government bureaucrats. The behavior of South Carolina's DHEC was something to behold and cost us a large amount of money for no purpose. Sure, "regulating in hindsight", he should have moved GRNO to Texas in 1994, but that is water over the dam. He was led to believe the bureaucracy of SC would not be a problem. Just as in the other disasters, he relied on the advice of paid consultants throughout, and while that responsibility flows to GRNO and Bill under the theory of Respondeat Superior, why would anybody pay all those consultants if they don't act on their advice?
"And while drawing hundreds of thousands of dollars from GRNO to pay his personal legal fees,"
Well, that was a dangerous thing to say. Is that statement something you can prove? As far as I know, GRNO has no income of its own yet and must rely on Bill finding the cash to put into GRNO to keep it open for business. The money he must pay lawyers to defend himself and his wife is drawn away from supporting GRNO's operations and never belonged to GRNO in the first place. The cost of all these lawyers and other consultants over the years is what has drained the life out of GRNO, and Bill is the one keeping it alive. And as far as hiring new sets of lawyers for personal service to the Carraways rather than relying of G&S's advice to GRNO which has been Bill's life for the last several years, all I can say is read the previous sentence again.
Charles |
