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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: rich4eagle who wrote (270495)	7/5/2002 10:25:06 PM
From: Raymond Duray	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

SHRUB: CHEATING SHAREHOLDERS BECAUSE HE'S CORRUPT, CALCULATED AND/OR NEGLIGENT mediawhoresonline.com [[Note: The "88" refers to Bush-43]] The 88 and his 3's, 4's, and 144's: Bush Cheats Shareholders -Corrupt and Calculated or Corrupt and Negligent? MWO: The latest developments and the past and present spin puts 88 in a pickle. I am a lawyer who has, in the past, been responsible for preparing things like Forms 3, 4 and 144, as well as Audit Committee charters. But any 2nd-year law student can tell you that a director has a duty to protect the interests of shareholders, which would include for a member of the Audit Committee not-so-mundane things like being aware of fraudulent accounting schemes that will force restatements on such a massive scale. So either he is a criminal, or he breached a duty to the company's shareholders. Forms 3 and 4 actually are, in any ordinary circumstance, boring and insignificant. If 88 filed his Form 144, which announces an intent to sell stock in reliance on Rule 144 (which allows a person to sell unregistered shares of a publicly traded security it was held long enough and the company is current in required reports), then he announced to the world an intention to sell a certain number of shares. Form 3 is what an insider files when he becomes an insider. Form 4 is basically an amendment to the information on Form 3 that says something has changed. It specifies the date, price and character of the sale (market sale, non-market disposition like a gift, etc.). Forms 4 are filed late all the time, in both perfectly innocent situations and otherwise. Under current rules, a Form 4 must be filed by the 10th day of the month following the sale. If a Form 4 is filed late, that fact is disclosed in the next annual proxy statement sent to shareholders. It is significant in 88's obviously illegal insider trading, however, despite the Form 144, precisely because it would have specified the date, price and character of the sale. People would have immediately recognized the illegality of the sale because the timing of the sale would have been screamingly obvious, and 88 was on the Audit Committee, so he may have been privy to things like conversations with the auditors and draft financial statements. As the other director pointed out, they were kept constantly aware of developments in the company's finances. If, on the other hand, 88 and his various mouthpieces are telling the truth (insert prolonged sardonic laughter here), and he didn't know what was going on, then he is guilty of exactly the same kind of inattentive, lazy, and negligent behavior as any of the Enron, Tyco, Global Crossing, etc. board members. So which is it? Did he cheat the shareholders (and the market as a whole) by using his inside knowledge to pull money out ahead of them, or did he cheat shareholders by breaching his duty of care and being lazy and ignorant? Six, two and even, it's both. -JPL, attorney