This week, it was announced that Usana Health Sciences (NASDAQ:USNA) and Fraud Discovery Institute had reached a settlement in their legal battle. Usana basically had most of its case thrown out by a federal judge, but still could have pursued allegations of illegal manipulation of the stock.

The most interesting thing about the whole case against Barry Minkow and FDI is that Usana repeatedly called the report issued by Barry “false and misleading.” Yet the company never addressed any of the substantive allegations in the report or proved that they were incorrect. And no one held their feet to the fire and demanded that they prove that what he said was false.

Yet a business decision was made by both sides of the case to settle, and according to the Associated Press:

USANA will withdraw its lawsuit against Minkow and his Fraud Discovery Institute in the U.S. District Court for the district of Utah. In turn, Minkow and the Fraud Discovery Institute will not trade in USANA’s stock, will remove information within their control regarding USANA from the Internet, and will not publish any further statements about USANA.

Usana paid Minkow $200,000 to settle, and Usana has basically accomplished their main goal: To stop a man who has uncovered billions of dollars of fraud at other companies from talking about them. Why? Because he’s obviously so on-the-mark with what he says that they’re scared.

 

8 Comments

  1. Barbara 07/29/2008 at 5:07 pm - Reply

    Hopefully USANA will finally get what is coming to them. Berry did a lot of work to prove what they were doingis wrong but the many lemmings following behind the company do not realize that one day their will be no one to recrute and the company will faulter. Hopefully people like Terminatedramp will continue thier fight and show the public that what the company is doing is scamming innocent people into believing they too can acheive finacial freedome without having to hold a real job.

  2. ken 07/29/2008 at 11:43 pm - Reply

    why would Barry remove all the findings from his research? Is he being paid a nice sum to keep quiet?

  3. Tracy Coenen 07/30/2008 at 7:14 am - Reply

    I don’t know. I’m not a party to this agreement and the settlement is confidential.

  4. michael webster 08/11/2008 at 7:27 pm - Reply

    Ken wrote: “why would Barry remove all the findings from his research? Is he being paid a nice sum to keep quiet?”

    He is being paid, but all his findings are public. Many of them right here.

  5. michael webster 08/23/2008 at 10:29 am - Reply

    But not anymore.

  6. jack street 03/16/2009 at 1:13 am - Reply

    there is a right place to discuss this issue and that is in court.if the case was dismissed, there is no evidence to prove the allegation of fraud unless you are barking at the wrong tree.
    you are wasting our time and it shows that you have a hidden motive. all will be realized after a while. God knows best.
    Have an open heart to uncover the lie within in you.
    my advise is for you to visit your shrink to help you have a peace of mind. – jack

  7. Tracy Coenen 03/16/2009 at 7:16 am - Reply

    Jack – Thanks for your insightful comments. The court case wasn’t about the fraud perpetuated by Usana. It was about Usana’s false allegations against Barry Minkow… which were dismissed. I have no motive other than revealing the truth.

  8. Hellbent 04/02/2009 at 11:20 pm - Reply

    Barry Minkow’s complete report on Usana, including addenda 1-20, is still available on the Web courtesy of The Internet Archive:

    http://web.archive.org/web/20070325225014/www.frauddiscovery.net/usana.html

    Lots of additional Usana material Minkow was forced to remove from the FDI site can also be found by fishing around the archived pages from 2007 as well:

    http://web.archive.org/web/20070325225014/www.frauddiscovery.net/usana.html

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