Digital Brand Media and Marketing Group Inc (DBMM)

[janice shell]

And here we have part of the appellate decision in Scattered. Fascinating and fun. I hope at least some posters will take the trouble to read all of it. Here's the closing:

It was properly dismissed for another reason as well. The plaintiffs could not prove injury with the degree of certainty, low that it is, necessary to obtain an award of damages in a securities case. Blue Chip Stamps v. Manor Drug Stores, 421 U.S. 723, 95 S.Ct. 1917, 44 L.Ed.2d 539 (1975); Pelletier v. Stuart-James Co., 863 F.2d 1550, 1557-58 (11th Cir.1989). (They do not seek any other form of relief.) They bought stock that was selling for many times its actual value, hoping against hope that there were enough foolish investors to push the price up despite the imminence of its certain plunge. It is entirely speculative that but for Scattered's short selling, the plaintiffs would have sold at a profit or at a reduced loss before the price plunged to its value in the reorganization. The plaintiffs do not suggest that short selling in the stock of a firm undergoing reorganization is forbidden. Other traders might have seen the opportunity Scattered did, and their short selling might have driven the price sufficiently low to thwart any profit by these plaintiffs. It was not necessary that short selling drive the price all the way down to 7.8 cents (where it was when the music stopped), only that it drive the price below what it would have been had Scattered not sold short in such massive quantities. But to recapitulate the essential point of this opinion, since the conduct in which Scattered engaged appears to have served rather than disserved the fundamental objectives of the securities laws, we are not inclined to strain to find a violation of a specific provision.

https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?q=Sullivan+%26+Long+v.+Scattered+Corp&hl=en&as_sdt=2,39&as_vis=1&case=8171030952991497392&scilh=0