{"id":1565,"date":"2008-06-04T13:41:27","date_gmt":"2008-06-04T19:41:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sequence-inc.com\/fraudfiles\/?p=1565"},"modified":"2012-01-02T10:52:33","modified_gmt":"2012-01-02T16:52:33","slug":"fund-manager-being-sued-for-libel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/fund-manager-being-sued-for-libel\/","title":{"rendered":"Fund Manager Being Sued for Libel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Timminco Limited is suing fund manager Ravi Sood<\/a> and his firm Lawrence Asset Management because of the following statement made by Sood on Business News Network in April:<\/p>\n

\n

There is no evidence that they have any sort of proprietary technology. There is no evidence that they can actually deliver on their claims.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n


\nThe company’s website says<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Timminco is a leader in the production and marketing of lightweight metals, specializing in solar grade silicon for the rapidly growing solar photovoltaic energy industry. Using its proprietary technology, Timminco processes metallurgical grade silicon into low cost solar grade silicon for use in the manufacture of solar cells. Timminco also produces silicon metal, magnesium extrusions and other specialty metals for use in a broad range of industrial applications serving the aluminum, chemical, pharmaceutical, electronics and automotive industries.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And so Timminco is suing, seeking C$6 million in damages in their lawsuit filed in Ontario Superiod Court. They say that Sood is trying to drive down the price of the company’s shares with his statement.
\nThe company’s stock traded Tuesday at C$30.60, with a 52-week low of C$3.43. Media reports say industry insiders are skeptical of its claimed proprietary technology and its claimed ability to make its products at a lower cost than competitors. Timminco makes solar-grade silicon, which has had shortages and cost increases. No other company has been able to do what Timminco claims it can do, and Timminco has been very secretive, which apparently fuels the skepticism.
\nEthan Zindler of New Energy Finance said the following about the lawsuit:<\/p>\n

My feeling is that if you\u2019re a highly speculative company with a speculative technology, it would seem to me that you don\u2019t have a whole lot to complain about if some people think what do you won\u2019t work. If people are betting that you and your technology will work, you would seem to open yourself up to people that might have the other opinion.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So basically, Timminco needs to put up or shut up. Don’t be such babies about someone criticizing your claimed technology and claimed capabilities when none of it has been proven. Was Sood incorrect when he said the technology hasn’t been proven? I think not. It seems he was right on point with that.<\/p>\n

But this isn’t the first or last company that is trying to shut up critics. Overstock.com (NASDAQ:OSTK), CEO Patrick Byrne, and in-house cyberstalker Judd Bagley are notorious for harassing and intimidating critics of the company’s business methods and financial reporting.<\/p>\n

This is also no different than the Biovail lawsuit against Gradient Analytics<\/a> for a negative (and completely accurate) report Gradient put out about the company. Oh, and Overstock sued Gradient too<\/a> for saying that their crappy company is, indeed crappy.<\/p>\n

Companies are trying to intimidate those who criticize their businesses and their financial reporting. I just want to know when companies are going to start suing people who say false positive things about them. Fair is fair.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Timminco Limited is suing fund manager Ravi Sood and his firm Lawrence Asset Management because of the following statement made by Sood on Business News Network in April: There is no evidence that they have any sort of proprietary technology. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fraud-news-stories"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Z0e-pf","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1565\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}