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Gold/Mining/Energy : coastal caribbean (cco@) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Henry Volquardsen who wrote (1190)	12/24/1999 3:20:00 AM
From: Edwin S. Fujinaka	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4686

I heard just about every lawyer joke every written during the OJ trial <G>. On a serious note, I am wondering just what scenario might result in harm to us shareholders if I began to attempt to inform everyone of the reality of the situation as I see it. If I am too optimistic about the potential valuation of the leases, I am open to a rational argument that suggests that the value of the property taken during a condemnation type "taking" is less than the multi billion dollars that I project. I am making a comparison to the Michigan vs Miller Oil Case that resulted in a $90 million settlement over only 10.8 million barrels of oil. Can Coastal Petroleum's potential be estimated to be 1000 times as much based on the Oil & Gas Journal article of last February? That article talked about "tens of billions of barrels of oil". Finally, I hope that the CCO Lawyers are not negotiating based on some notion of how much the State can afford to pay. (If they even are negotiating.). The State of Florida is paying a small group of lawyers about $3.4 billion for their legal fees in the tobacco case. Surely Coastal Petroleum should receive at least as much if the end game in a court case would result in a liability for the State of Florida in the tens of billions of dollars. I'd like to see a formal appraisal or estimate of the damages before even proceeding any further. Why doesn't CCO commission such a formal estimate of just what "just compensation" might be? I can't imagine anyone attempting to negotiate any sort of deal in the absence of such an estimate of just compensation from a real professional in condemnation litigation. In fact, given the magnitude of this case, it seems reasonable to me that CCO should hire a specialist in the field of condemnation litigation. That's what I did in my little condemnation case here in Tucson and we wound up with five or six times the State's intial offer. Condemnation is a specialized field and very few lawyers know much about it. My experience with lawyers is that most of them do not want to call in an expert, but this situation is beyond the capability of a general counsel in business law. This case may be the largest condemnation case ever litigated in the United States. If anyone knows otherwise, I'm open to being corrected <G>.