22nd Century Group Inc (XXII)

[groverisproud]

For starters, a move from CEO to CTO is not a promotion. Beyond that, the wording of the release seems to be a clever way on the part of the company to manage damage control while they determined the extent of his bad behavior/decided what next steps they should take.

By keeping Joe on the board, XXII is ensuring that he has to abide by SEC rules regarding insider trading which allows XXII to manage his trading activity. The company is releasing new and relevant information on a regular basis now...Joe can't buy/sell stock at will given that he is still an insider and has had material knowledge of these developments before the rest of us have. Given Joe's renegade and damaging trading history this is a very smart defensive move on the part of the company.

Joe could step down from the board, completely sever his ties with the company, forfeit his "insider" status and sell his shares on the open market. However, he would have to be insane to leave on his own volition because he would be walking away from his potentially lucrative stock options if he did. Joe may lose his stock options if XXII wins their case against him, but it would make no sense for him to walk away from them just to be able to torpedo the price on the open market in an act of retaliation.