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Non-Tech : The Enron Scandal - Unmoderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KLP who wrote (628)	1/23/2002 5:08:08 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3602

KLP: My hunch is the fees are ON TOP of the $6 Billion won for clients... The New York Times was not totally clear about that in their article. These class action lawsuits can be VERY LUCRATIVE for the lawyers that really deliver for their clients...In fact, some of the top lawyers in this field have moved onto the Forbes 400 by nailing the large Tobacco and Asbestos firms for their clients. Today they're suing alot of the HMOs and are always willing to go after deep pockets when they see that fraud, lies and deception are all over the place. These lawyers will make life very difficult for Ken Lay and other top Enron execs....=)

To: KLP who wrote (628)	1/25/2002 12:45:59 AM
From: BDR	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 3602

<<His firm, Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach, accounts for about half of all shareholder suits against corporations and has won $6 billion for its clients. >> Excerpt from: In a class of his own Jan 17th 2002 From The Economist print edition How Melvyn Weiss, a class-action lawyer, finds crimes that pay From over 1,000 cases, around $30 billion has been recovered from targets including Charles Keating's savings and loan empire, Drexel Burnham Lambert, Washington Public Power Supply Systems, Met Life, Prudential and various banks trading on Nasdaq. Between 1988 and 1998, Mr Weiss personally earned more than $100m, according to the National Law Journal. Who wins? Is society better off because of Mr Weiss? Many people have been compensated for being cheated. Corporate governance has probably been improved by a fear of lawsuits. Mr Weiss even sees himself as an ally of auditors, by providing them with an excuse to be tough on their clients. “I have always believed the auditing profession needed a strong whip over their head so it does not look like they were over-eager in pushing their clients to be honest,” he says. Conversely, in 1999 Milberg Weiss paid $50m to settle an abuse-of-process case in which Mr Weiss admitted telling Daniel Fischel, an expert witness who helped defendants to use economics to prevail over Milberg Weiss, that “I will destroy you” (Mr Weiss says his comments were taken out of context). And an entire class of costly insurance covering executives and directors has emerged in response to Weiss-inspired lawsuits, as well as reams of meaningless legalese attached to products. Shareholder suits, in particular, seem a dubious remedy, because they do no more than transfer money from a vehicle the shareholders already own back to themselves—minus large legal fees—resulting in a large net loss to the shareholders. Only a very talented lawyer could argue that America is better off for that.