Three recent legal judgements favor corporations and their bigwigs over little people harmed by their actions. Shareholders and employees took it on the chin in several court rulings. Consider the victory for corporations, even those behaving in a clearly fraudulent manner:
1) The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday against investors who sue businesses that help manipulate stock prices of publicly traded companies. In a 5-3 decision that split along conservative-liberal lines, the court gave a measure of protection from securities lawsuits to suppliers, banks, accountants and law firms that do business with corporations engaging in securities fraud. The justices ruled against investors who alleged that two suppliers colluded with Charter Communications Inc. to deceive Charter's stockholders and inflate the price of the cable TV company's stock.
2) The Supreme Court bounced an investor lawsuit targeting Enron and the investment banks, accounting firms and other groups that aided and abetted Ken Lay and Co.'s fraud. Without comment, the Supremes refused to hear the case .
3) The Texas Supreme Court ruled ex-BP President, Lord John Browne cannot be questionned without limits about the oil giant's deadly 2005 Texas City refinery accident that killed 15 workers and injured 170 more. The end result is Browne may not be deposed at all. London-based BP has said Browne has no unique knowledge relevant to the case. Exxon Mobil Corp. and several business groups filed a brief in support of BP, arguing such depositions would hurt corporate management and would discourage companies from moving to Texas. (This would be the same BP CEO given a free pass by James Baker in his federal government sponsored investigation into the accident, and the same John Browne later hired by The Carlyle Group's Riverstone Holdings, an energy joint venture. James Baker has close ties with Carlyle execs, including the recently passed Richard Darman. News reports and Carlyle's statement show the close relationship between the two men mentioned, James Baker and Richard Darman. Richard was instrumental in the launch and success of Riverstone, which later hired Lord John Browne away from BP.)
It appears business to business fraud is OK, even if it hurts the little guy, shareholders and employees. As for CEO's testifying, that's only if they have unique knowledge. That way they get to slink away to that new job their friends have waiting. So much for Harry Truman's, "The buck stops here" and Dr. Deming's, "It's management's job to know." It turns out "The buck stops below" and "management doesn't know squat", other than many how to cheat to inflate their stock price, thus maximizing their executive stock option compensation. At least that's what recent court actions and news articles indicate.
