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To: Bucky Katt who wrote (15447)11/14/2003 10:56:16 AM
From: Skywatcher  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 48461
 
Odyssey Announces Admission to American
Stock Exchange
Thursday November 13, 9:28 am ET

TAMPA, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 13, 2003--Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc.
(OTCBB:OMEX - News), a leader in the field of deep ocean shipwreck exploration, has
been approved for listing on the American Stock Exchange (Amex).

Odyssey's new trading symbol will be OMR and trading of the company's stock on the
American Stock Exchange is expected to begin on November 19, 2003.

opportunity here?
since they are now BB stock until Wednesday....any institution or big boy can't buy until then....should the VERY valuable gold coins continue to be found at $3-6000! each....could pop big after the AMEX listing
CC



To: Bucky Katt who wrote (15447)11/14/2003 3:01:40 PM
From: Bucky Katt  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 48461
 
WowEWow, did I get short the indexes at the right time this morn....
My QQQ $35 & $36 puts are up 100% all by themselves this minute...

________________

State Jury Orders Exxon Mobil
To Pay Alabama $11.9 Billion

MONTGOMERY, Ala. -- A state jury returned an $11.9 billion judgment against Exxon Mobil Corp. on Friday in Alabama's suit over natural-gas royalties.

The jury awarded $63.6 million in compensatory damages and $11.8 billion in punitive damages. The award exceeded state attorneys' request for $9.3 billion.

Jurors had to find Exxon Mobil committed fraud to return the multibillion-dollar verdict Alabama sought. If the damages are upheld on appeal, the money would go into state coffers.

After the four-week trial, jurors deliberated for four and a half hours Thursday and about two hours Friday. "We felt Exxon thought they were going to get away with this," said jury foreman Joe King, a Montgomery teacher. "We wanted to send a message that they were not, and that this corporation can't get away with doing wrong."

Exxon Mobil spokesman Bob Davis said the verdict was excessive and the company would appeal. "We did not engage in fraud, pure and simple," Mr. Davis said.

The state sued Exxon Mobil, of Irving, Texas, in 1999, contending the company had violated its leases for natural-gas wells in state-owned waters along the Alabama coast. The state had alleged Exxon Mobil tried to cheat it out of $1 billion in royalties from 13 natural-gas wells along the coast by intentionally deducting too much in expenses for operating the wells.

Exxon Mobil's attorneys said the company has followed its leases with the state and owes Alabama nothing.

In 2000, a state-court jury concluded Exxon Mobil had underpaid the state of Alabama by $87.7 million for natural-gas royalties from wells in Gulf Coast waters, and should pay additional punitive damages of $3.42 billion.

But in late 2002, the Alabama Supreme Court reversed that verdict and ordered a new trial after finding that an in-house Exxon Mobil memo should never have been admitted as evidence. The court didn't address the size of the original verdict.

Exxon Mobil had argued that the issue in the case was a small dispute over how to compute royalties under the state's offshore leases. Exxon Mobil, which has paid Alabama more than $1 billion in royalties, claimed the leases allowed it to deduct certain processing costs before paying the state royalties, and didn't require that royalties be paid on natural gas used as part of the state's production process. What is more, Exxon Mobil argued, punitive damages were unwarranted and excessive because the company had fully reported all royalty information to the state.

In closing arguments Wednesday, State Attorney Robert Cunningham said the state government had been shorted $63.6 million in royalties and that the loss could have climbed to as much as $930 million over the 30-year life of the natural-gas field in Mobile Bay. He asked the jury to return a verdict of as many as 10 times the potential loss, or $9.3 billion.

Exxon Mobil's attorneys said Alabama used a new kind of a lease for wells along the coast rather than the standard industry lease. The oil company argued that its payments to the state were in line with memos from the state Conservation Department that said the company could deduct the "reasonable direct cost of manufacture and transportation."

The trial was conducted during a state financial crisis in which about 800 state workers got layoff notices. Some of the courthouse workers who dealt with the jury are due to lose their jobs Nov. 26, but the judge prohibited everyone involved in the case from mentioning the state's financial troubles or Exxon Mobil's financial condition.

The state hired two of Alabama's top plaintiff law firms, Beasley Allen and Cunningham Bounds, to handle the case on a contingency fee: nothing if they lost and 14% of the judgment if they won.