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Pastimes : Brokerage-Chat Site Securities Fraud: A Lawsuit -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Graystone who wrote (385)	6/30/2001 1:24:16 PM
From: Dr.MensaWannabe	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 3143

"It is unlikely that Mr. Asser could do anything which would actually undo what is already a done deal. I think the imprint is permanent " If you mean the lawsuit itself, I am not so sure it is a done deal. Ollie refuses to answer that question. He may have a confidentiality agreement with the firm but that doesn't mean they have agreed to take the case/cases. It is unclear as to whether this is even a class action. He mentions "lawsuit" in the thread header but said that anyone who called this a class action was "ill-informed" and indicated that it might be a suit of individual plaintiffs. His solicitation of plaintiffs is problematic - especially if the firm has not agreed to take the case/cases. His representations are problematic- especially if the firm has not agreed to take the case/cases. If you don't understand why this is so, see the post of Ms. Cobalt that says, "Excellent points, Dr." She is a lawyer and does have an understanding of the legal ramifications. In my opinion, Ollie could be setting up himself and this lawfirm to be sued at a later date by the potential plaintiffs depending on the course of events. There may be information out there that they need to consider that may not be in their hands, yet. Ollie may not be the only one with material evidence. A person doesn't need to have been working on this for a year to have the goods. I have never quite understood why a family with a big wig international lawyer couldn't get anywhere with this over the past year. Why did it take Tim Luke to start the ball rolling?

To: Graystone who wrote (385)	6/30/2001 7:59:01 PM
From: CountofMoneyCristo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3143

<font color=green>Mr. Asser's contention is that the trade commission has become the basis of the stock recommendation and that brokers and chat site operators are working together. Exactly - and to the Devil with clients. Thank-you for such a clear explanation. In these things, it is important to boil the complex down to the easily understandable. However, there are other charges on top of this one. Though I cannot go into specific detail here, please consider the following scenario: ...Imagine a brokerage firm and its staff which, in addition to performing normal brokerage functions, also trades for its own account, either directly or through surrogates, during the day, and that that firm and that staff have criminal intent - or front-running, as has been alleged against "TokyoJoe" by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which case was settled for nearly $800,000 - and that that firm and its staff wish to secure an advantage over their clients in the markets, how simple a matter this would be. While considering this, open your trading software during the course of any volatile trading day, with stocks jumping 5-10% in minutes, and remember that brokerage firms employ top software engineers. Consider how often shorts are "unavailable" or "glitches" stall order execution for precious seconds and/or minutes. Consider how easily, in the wrong hands, knowledge of the trades of a vast number of day traders may be employed to front-run clients. Consider how that absolute knowledge and control over order execution software might be gathered together in a software program designed to monitor clients, and illegally exploited, again, in a scenario where criminal intent to defraud reigns supreme... Finally, please consider the following, not conjecture but plain fact: DURING MY OWN TRADING CAREER, MY PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL TRADE POSITIONS WERE DISSEMINATED BY BROKERAGE STAFF TO CHAT SITE OWNERS WITHOUT MY PERMISSION. This raises the question: if brokerage firms find the deliberate kicked-back churn manipulation of traders through controlled, deceitful chat site investment advice a quite acceptable and legitimate business practice, would they stop there? Would they condone only this "gray area" while deciding that manipulating stock prices would be out of the question? Now you may begin to realize just how serious a matter this truly is. If this last charge is proven in court, then it is quite possible that the United States Attorney's Office may be compelled to become involved, bringing, indeed, criminal charges punishable by prison sentence. They would be justified, wouldn't they? No, no one forced day traders to execute their stock transactions through explicit (I use that word intentionally here) threat of violence, as the brokers/sites invariably argue; however, the fact remains that theft, whether armed or not, is still theft. Therefore, perhaps those who are affiliated with brokerage firms may begin to question these associations, and begin to realize that those who have not accepted any personal or professional responsibility whatsoever for their actions, the brokers, must, at a bare minimum, be held to the same standard as you say traders should be, don't you think? Olivier