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Circuit City Bankruptcy May Help Satellite Radio Inventory Levels

Just to clear things up this was posted by Micheal Hartleib at Sirius Buzz. If you read it you will see the case that "markbmark" is talking about were the judge said the lawers could not practice in the state for 5 years was well before the case against SIRI. So one has to ask how a judge would even bring up SIRI at that time, almost 2 years before the SIRI case came in.


hartleib1
Senior Member


Join Date: Mar 2008
Posts: 131 Friday, February 22, 2008
Judge to California lawyers: Don't come backTriangle Business Journal - by Chris Baysden
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: Don't come back [02/22/2008]
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RALEIGH - North Carolina public companies have one less law firm to worry about when it comes to shareholder lawsuits filed in the state.

North Carolina Business Court Judge Ben Tennille has barred the San Diego, Calif., firm of Robbins Umeda & Fink from practicing in the state for five years on a pro hac vice basis. The Latin phrase, which means "this time only," allows an out-of-state lawyer to appear in court for a particular trial even though the lawyer isn't licensed in that state.

The order came as something of a coda to a shareholder lawsuit, Egelhof v. Szulik, filed on behalf of a former Red Hat shareholder against members of the technology company's officers and board of directors.

Shareholder lawsuits are the bane of many public corporations since there are a host of law firms that specialize in filing them on word of bad news from a company.

In 2004, Robbins Umeda & Fink represented a plaintiff in a shareholders derivative case involving Chapel Hill-based Pozen. That lawsuit was dismissed in November 2005.

Press Millen, a Womble Carlyle attorney who helped defend Red Hat's management in the Egelhof v. Szulik case, hopes the victory his side scored will have a positive impact for corporations beyond the case.

"I think it's pretty serious," Millen says of the sanctions. "It's definitely a warning shot over the bow of out-of-state counsels about filing meritless lawsuits in North Carolina."

Sanctions against plaintiff
The order, which was issued Feb. 4, prohibits Robbins Umeda & Fink's lawyers from appearing in the state's courts for five years. It also bars Andrew Egelhof, the plaintiff in the case, from acting as a shareholder derivative plaintiff or a class-action representative in North Carolina litigation for five years.

The Egelhof v. Szulik complaint, which originally was filed in Wake County Superior Court in 2004, included allegations of insider trading and gross mismanagement at Red Hat. Defendants included Red Hat Chairman Matthew Szulik and board members Marye Anne Fox, former chancellor of North Carolina State University, and retired Army Gen. Hugh Shelton.

Tennille dismissed the plaintiff's claims in March 2006 due in part to Egelhof's loss of standing as a stockholder. The defendants later asked that they be awarded attorneys' fees. Though that motion was not granted, it prompted Tennille to examine actions taken by the plaintiff and the law firm.

Tennille asserts that the lawsuit was filed in a "needless rush to court" just 31 days after Red Hat restated its earnings on July 19, 2004. He wrote in his order that the case was filed without an inspection of the company's books and records, and many of the allegations relied on media reports and published analyst opinions.

Tennille also took exception to Egelhof being the fiduciary standard bearer. According to court documents, Egelhof was a 24-year-old Kansas resident when he responded to an Internet solicitation seeking a plaintiff.

While he had a degree in business administration, Egelhof had worked in information technology jobs at Kansas State University. His holdings in Red Hat amounted to 28 shares of stock worth $710.50 that he bought in 2004.




markbmark, Dhaaa, facts are hard to get around aren't they. By the way go ahead and keep posting the lies. Tell me when you have enough rope.