12/18/2007, 10:55am, EST
Tuesday, December 18th
NYC pension fund continues with Apple suit
A group managing the pension fund for New York City's public servants is continuing a lawsuit against Apple, despite a ruling suggesting it should not, reports say. In November, Judge Jeremy Fogel of the US District Court in San Jose determined that the New York City Employees' Retirement System (NYCERS) had no basis for suing Apple over stock backdating, as it hadn't actually suffered damages. Fogel did recommend joining a derivative suit that would not have produced payouts, but NYCERS has instead chosen to re-file a second version of the suit.
Exactly what changes may have been made are unknown, but NYCERS is still accusing Apple of damages triggered by a 14 percent drop in its stock price, a result of the backdating scandal revealed in 2006. Fogel is said to have dismissed the case in part because Apple value has risen 500 percent since 2005, easily negating any short-term losses. A hearing scheduled for January will decide whether or not NYCERS can continue with its second lawsuit, which may affect the pension plan's health if no money is awarded.
Filed under: Investor, Apple
Other story tags: lawsuit, New York City, backdating, stocks, NYCERS
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As the judge said, they've suffered no damages, so they are just wasting their money.
And while it's oh-so-much-fun to lash out at lawyers, unless the fund is actually run by lawyers it's still the fund that is suing, not the lawyers.
As for tossing out the suit, they did not sell shares, they took no lose.
So should I bring suit with the Dow Jones since all my shares dropped when it was trading below 13k? Should I bring suit to the Bush Administration for adjusting the interest rates which negatively affected me?
No, because I do not want to look like an ass. Whether its the global economy or a single company, there is ALWAYS risk and EVERY investor knows that! Think Enron!
You're making a very big assumption here. Nowhere does it make mention that their lawyers made the recommendation to continue. I don't know any lawyer that would make that recommendation after the suit was tossed out. What's more likely is that the lawyer made the recommendation to drop it and the pension fund ignored this advice. This happens far more often.
So should I bring suit with the Dow Jones since all my shares dropped when it was trading below 13k? Should I bring suit to the Bush Administration for adjusting the interest rates which negatively affected me?
No - because that is a risk that you are reasonably expected to take into consideration, and a risk that share prices are generally adjusted for automatically. The options scandal, on the other hand, was caused by improper accounting practices which is outside that expected risk.
If you look back at 2001 and 2002, and held Dow shares that were affected by the fall of Enron or Worldcom, you would be entitled to sue either of those companies (of course, good luck getting anything from them)
there is ALWAYS risk and EVERY investor knows that! Think Enron!
Investors are expected to take reasonable precautions. Nobody could have reasonably mitigated the damage that Enron caused, except for those who knew what was going on (surprise surprise, they are all multi-millionaires, including the dead and the jailed).
As to your questions/points:
People hire lawyers for legal advice.
No they don't. They hire lawyers to sue people and make money, regardless of reason, logic, or the like. And once people see $$$ in their eyes, there's little stopping them.
So should I bring suit with the Dow Jones since all my shares dropped when it was trading below 13k?
I'm sorry, are you invested in a Dow Jones industrial stock? Did Dow Jones do something illegal that caused the index to drop? And since the index is just that, an index, which is based on 30 companies, it dropping would more indicate drops in the associated companies. Perhaps you should look into suing them.
Should I bring suit to the Bush Administration for adjusting the interest rates which negatively affected me?
Um, no. Because the Bush administration has no ability to change interest rates. That's up to the Federal Reserve, which is an independent gov't entity (the only way it would work at all anyway).
And, again, did they do something illegal ? Perhaps you could spend your time suing the mortgage companies and hedge funds who loaned so much out to people who were such high credit risks, thus causing the current economic mess.
But that's not right. We should just tell people to wait until the stock price goes up 500 percent, because then they won't have suffered.