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Strategies & Market Trends : Stock Watcher's Thread / Pix of the Week (POW) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Stock Watcher who wrote (20692)	12/5/1999 10:52:00 PM
From: Francois Goelo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 52051

GOOD BYE, SHORT SELLING BASHERS (SSB's for Short...)... Clipcloppers (CLOPF) face precedent-setting judge's ban... Global Investment.com Financial Inc.... by Brent Mudry Although his equestrian promotion is trading at a pedestrian 20 U.S. cents on the OTC Bulletin Board, Vancouver stock promoter John Henry is making a name for himself and clipclop.com in the embryonic field of Internet media law. After a brief court hearing on Tuesday, Mr. Henry's lawyer Darrell Roberts emerged with a precedent-setting injunction, good for eight days, which if it stands and spreads, could slow down busy Internet stock chat sites to a virtual crawl. A sampling of clipclop chatter that has Mr. Henry up on his high horse is the usual chat room drivel in which posters routinely call those they do not like, crooks, crooked promoters, stock manipulators, hypesters, string-pullers, dot.com-crazed followers, public dupers, yo-yos, pump and dumpers, grandiose planners and evidently any other insult that comes to mind. In an ex-parte hearing, without any representation by the defendants, Mr. Justice Peter Fraser ordered Stockhouse Media and Raging Bull to immediately remove a series of unflattering messages and forbid the five anonymous posters from making any further contributions. After a 45-minute crash course on the Internet, chat sites, stock promotions and related legal issues from Mr. Roberts, a senior Vancouver lawyer with the firm Roberts & Baker, Judge Fraser found himself in virtually-uncharted territory in Internet law. The decision is a first in Canada. Mr. Roberts notes the Internet is so new that he was unable to cite any similar previous Canadian decisions, and he now knows of just two U.S. cases in which Yahoo Finance was sued last year by companies seeking to unmask anonymous posters. It is not yet known what the outcome of either case was. The suit was filed in court last Friday, the ex-parte hearing was held on Tuesday morning, and the judge rendered his decision that afternoon. Mr. Roberts notes that ex-parte cases require a "very stringent test," and after mulling over the case at lunch on Tuesday and hearing some further brief submissions afterwards from Mr. Roberts, Judge Fraser quickly handed down his decision, in the form of oral reasons. The judge's decision is not yet available in written form, but a notable quote is. Whoever WaveyDavey is, he feels free to throw around serious allegations "cowardly hiding behind the screen of an alias," Judge Fraser told Mr. Roberts and the lawyers' junior, the only counsel present in the courtroom. In his decision Tuesday afternoon, Judge Fraser ordered Stockhouse and Raging Bull to immediately remove messages written on their Web sites by WaveyDavey, Wavey, garpike, Montero and Cook 81, but by Thursday afternoon a number of the offending messages remained untouched. The Canadian judge also ordered the clipclop five to stop publishing messages, especially unflattering ones, and ordered the two sites to disallow the quintet from making such postings. Mr. Roberts notes that Stockhouse was served with his suit on Monday, the day before the hearing, and it was served with the judge's order late Wednesday or on Thursday. U.S. service is a trickier feat, however. The clipclop.com lawyer notes that Boston-based Raging Bull was not served with the suit prior to the hearing, and service of the court order by a U.S. agent is in the works. Stockhouse and Raging Bull may get a chance to tell their side of the story and explain their version of the exploding Internet soon. (Stockwatch first reported on the innovative suit on Monday.)