I cannot find the older Qwest thread. Moderators if you can, please merge this into that thread. If and how this affects St Phil I certainly don't know. But it does show that he has been bailing out of Qwest before the final collapse, while at the same time Qwest was exaggerating earnings to keep the stock price up. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...9&u=/nm/20020730/bs_nm/tech_qwest_report_dc_5
While I don't think this will have an effect on MLS, the public is screaming for blood, and Anschutz could make a pretty inviting target for the Justice Department.
I remember people saying it wouldn't affect his status with MLS (I just moved to Denver so I don't have as much knowledge as others). However, I'm not a Qwest fan (continually late with service) so I can't say it bothers me that they are being investigated.
Not that this endears me to Uncle Phil (in fact, just the opposite), but one article a couple of years ago said he was good buddies with the Vice-Prez, Cheney. This may keep the blood hounds over at Justice off his back, at least for a while. (If I wasn't a die-hard MLS fan, this would greatly upset me. I shouldn't make deals with the devil just to support Div. 1 soccer in the U.S.) I know many pooh-pooh this whole Qwest-collapse thing, but I bet Garber, et al. fret about it a lot more than they let on.
I think it is pretty serious and certainly casts a shadow over Anschutz's personal and business reputation. But the bottom line is whether Anschutz has any personal liability in this situation. In general I think it is pretty hard to get at personal assets via shareholder lawsuits. Does anyone with legal expertise have any insight on this. Would shareholders have any chance of winning lawsuits filed directly against the personal wealth of Qwest corporate officers? I assume the basis of that lawsuit would be that the wealth was derived from fraudulent accounting practices.
And there are also questions about how his companies are mixed within themselves: Was it like Enron, or is everything more seperate?
I've got some experience in securities fraud cases. Uncle Phil will be sued personally and in his capacity as a Board Member. So, his assets will in on the line and he a very deep pocket that every securities litigator would love to have on the complaint. Whether or no he knew of any fraud (if there was any) is a big factor in how much he has to pony up -- ie. if he knew about the cooking of books and traded on this info all his profits in the stock and punitive damages would be up for grabs. Even if he was not involved in the fraud, the nature of his position on the board require his to take fiduciary duties to protect the company and if he didn't take certain steps that would have been reasonable, he on the hook again. Bottom line: Uncle Phil is likely to pony up a good chunk of change -- up to a billion if he knew about the fraud and several hundred million if he was just sort negligent.
Yes, it's very worrisome, but NOBODY here knows the facts of this case. Just add it to the list of MLS worries. One day at a time.. AARRGGHH
I agree with Flashman that Garber and the League honchos are probably a lot more worried about this than they are letting on. None of us will know the exact details about the seriousness of this matter, but it may be the gravest threat MLS has faced.
I have to disagree with this assessment. Every corporation has Director & Officer liability policies and almost every corporations by-laws indemnify a director or officer against any losses caused by their acts. The only exclusions are typically fraud, embezzlement, willful misconduct, etc. So if Phil were merely negligent, even grossly negligent, he probably never pays a penny of his own money. Fraud is a different story, but nearly impossible to prove and the likelihood of success on most corporate fraud cases (even in today's environment) is less than good.