Replies to post #59155 on Zeev's Turnips Patch-No Politics (ZEEV)

[basserdan]

MLSOFT,

I hope this doesn't ruin your day...... <G>

Tyco's lawyers under fire

Report: E-mails show outside firm knew of Kozlowski spending, accounting woes in early 2000.
December 27, 2002: 6:14 AM EST

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Newly discovered e-mails from Tyco International Ltd.'s former outside law firm reveal they knew about personal use of corporate funds by former Tyco Chairman L. Dennis Kozlowski and a host of accounting problems at the company in early 2000, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

The e-mails -- written by Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering partners Lewis Liman and William McLucas -- were obtained by the Manhattan district attorney's office and the Securities and Exchange Commission in their investigation into Tyco and some former top executives, according to people familiar with the matter.

Part of the SEC's probe involves whether the conglomerate and Wilmer Cutler withheld relevant information that would have helped the SEC in an informal inquiry it launched in 1999 into Tyco's accounting practices, the report said.

The SEC ended the informal inquiry in July 2000 without action -- well before this year's scandals involving Kozlowski and other former top executives.

In one e-mail, Liman came across a document relating to Kozlowski's personal use of company money in a binder that was to be produced to the SEC, the article said.

In a March 23, 2000, e-mail to Tyco's general counsel at the time, Mark Belnick, Liman wrote: "There are payments to a woman whom the folks in finance describe to be Dennis's girlfriend." The payments, totaling $100,000 in the form of a "loan," were to Karen Mayo, now Kozlowski's wife, the Journal reported.

In the e-mail, Liman called the payments "an embarrassing fact," but added he believed they couldn't be withheld from the SEC due to document requests the agency had made.

However, Belnick disagreed in an e-mail the following day, saying it was "non-responsive" to the SEC's requests and therefore didn't need to be produced.

In another instance, McLucas in an e-mail described differences between the preliminary, or "flash" numbers reported monthly by Tyco's operating units, and the final reported numbers, according to the article.

An official at Tyco was not immediately available to comment early Friday morning.

http://money.cnn.com/2002/12/27/news/companies/tyco.reut/index.htm

Go get 'em,
Dan