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Well, d*#@. I was going to pick up a few more shares today. I thought there might be a Friday sell off for beer money. Guess I'll be paying more for fewer shares next week.
They'll just say they were lied to and get a sternly worded letter from the bar association.
If he did take out loans from Bentham for his own personal expenses at shareholders' expense, that would be a criminal offense as well.
He is definitely suspect right now. Breach of contract, in the case of CBV, is a violation of civil law. So if he did breach the contract, he has broken the law, though it's not a criminal violation. If shareholders don't receive fair payment for their shares, I would suggest he has committed securities fraud, which is a violation of criminal law. I don't think it would be too difficult to prove intent. There are numerous SEC warnings he ignored. And when he reinstated UOIP in Delaware, he listed preferred shares. There were no preferred shares at the time UOIP was delisted, so I think that would be illegal and would provide evidence of intent. Lots of "ifs" right now. Hopefully, the legal team can get to the bottom of it.
Carter doesn't even want to pay Dierdre the $280k he borrowed.
Dierdre was issued shares before the additional 600 million shares were dumped into the market. With the conversion of Carter's preferred shares into 904 million commons, and the issuance of Dierdre's shares, all of the outstanding shares were pretty much locked up when the ISA was signed. Rob Howe issued the 600 million additional shares (the shares most of the rest of us own) afterward to pay off the old IceWeb debt, so Chanbond and UOIP could just focus on the patent litigation. Howe's 6 million shares were purchased out of the dilution after the ISA was signed.
We had heavy rain and wind in SoCal and there were power outages and flash flood warnings. Several cars ended up in the LA river.
"Trust Billy," they said...
Aaahh.
That would make sense. Dr. Teece testified during discovery that he didn't have all of the data. The legal team for the 13 weren't exactly forthcoming with requests for information.
According to the filing on July 7, they reached an agreement, so I'm assuming they are not still "negotiating." It could be a structured settlement.
I believe it's the one filed on 6/8/2020 that's still pending.
It wasn't Rob Howe who gave Carter the 904m shares. It was the previous CEO.
This is why it's hard for me to believe Chanbond would settle for a lowball offer around $600m to $700m (basically, the settlement costs for an app than has fewer than 20% of the customer base). Especially if the patents were part of the deal.
Most of the lawyers I interviewed charged between $850 per hour and $1100 per hour.
A thousand dollars per hour is not uncommon for lawyers.
We're aware. Carter reinstated Unified online, inc. With the state of delaware listing himself as sole director after the stock was delisted.
Exactly.
It sounds like the licenses were conveyed in the deal.
It would take the same amount of time -- whether we hire lawyers or have a court-appointed lawyer, makes no difference.
I think that's only in bankruptcy proceedings, when a debtor files a lien and asks the court to take possession.
Either way, we're going to pay -- a custodian is a lawyer appointed by the courts and paid for by shareholders, or we elect a board and file the necessary docs for receivership through the lawyers who filed the derivative lawsuit. With a custodianship, we may not be out of pocket up front; the custodian could take their fees from the proceeds of the settlement, though I'm not sure really.
How is Carter a stockholder if the law states UOIP has no shareholders?
He reinstated the company in Delaware listing himself as sole director and changed the address of the company to his address. That makes him the person we sue.
No, he was never an "elected" official. He just declared himself "sole director."
To make money.
Citadel is jumping the ask and bringing it down.
It's just hard for me to believe that after having the chance to settle for $500 - $600 million in August of 2020, as Dierdre testified to in her request for TRO, Carter would take the 13 to trial 9 months later, then, midway through the trial, while Chanbond's lawyers are holding the 13's nuggets in their hands basically, he would cave. Doesn't make sense to me.
True. Again, who knows, maybe Zomby and Specialneeds are right. But I wouldn't use Dierdre's filing as a basis for making any assumptions. There were a lot of "errors" in her filing, particularly about who incorporated "Unified" and when (she conflated Carter's LLC with UOIP), as well as stating under oath that Carter was the CEO, then attaching the ISA with Rob Howe's signature. Obviously, it was in her best interests to make things seem as dire as possible at the time.
That was the waterfall Dierdre ran by Carter reflecting that there would be nothing left for CBV and UOIP in the event of a lowball settlement at $500m, which is what she was hearing through her "connections." She also testified in that TRO at the time that she had it on good authority that settlement was "imminent" last August, which didn't turn out to be the case.
I think that was Dierdre's waterfall example, based on "rumors" she was hearing about a settlement from one of the 13 at about 50% of the value, according to her TRO. But you could be right. Who knows.
IDK. Settlement mid trial after nearly 6 years of litigation doesn't seem "quick." I'm really hoping the 13 caved when they realized the hot shot litigation specialist they hired bombed. Not to mention, the patents were conveyed with this settlement.
Yeah, $700m doesn't seem to come out to .10 to .15 per share after 20% to the lawyers and 20% to Bentham (the initial contract Dierdre signed).
I think companies generally choose the state of incorporation based on Corporate protections, not shareholder protections. But Delaware is the proper jurisdiction for a breach of contract suit against Chanbond.
It's a derivative suit filed on behalf of the company, so it will benefit all shareholders if they prevail.
Yep. It was incorporated in Delaware and domiciled in Virginia. Chanbond was incorporated in Delaware and domiciled in Texas. (An LLC is a corporation - a Limited Liability Corporation.)
UOIP was domiciled in Virginia and Chanbond was domiciled in Texas when the lawsuits against the 13 were filed.
He was acting on behalf of Chanbond. He did have the power to act on behalf of Chanbond.
I definitely wouldn't want Carter's legal bills right now.
I think the patent creators should definitely get their full cut, as well. But I think we should wait and see what they're asking for in their complaint first, before we determine whether or not they're on our side. Could be, like Dierdre, they're also asking for the whole pie.