Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Bloomberg's -- And Tony Mauro's -- Takes On The "Kentucky Windage" From The Supremes


I said yesterday I'd post it, when available -- here it is, as reprinted in The Boston Globe online. I think this story appeared on Bloomberg about 20 minutes after I detailed the potential for a majority line-up favoring the plaintiffs (on another board) -- based solely on what I saw as the skepticism evinced in the Justices' lines of questioning. In any event, the snippet:

. . . .Most of the nine justices suggested they are prepared to let shareholders sue Merck for alleged deception about the risks posed by Vioxx, which the company pulled from the market in 2004 because of links to heart attacks and strokes. . . .

In addition, Tony Mauro, writing for The National Law Journal, as posted over at law.com, ran a story last night, using a rather off-beat turn of phrase to describe parts of the suit (which turn of phrase appeared verbatim in mine), about three hours after I ran mine (phrase bolded, below):
. . . .Merck. . . argued that there was enough evidence of possible fraud in his client's statements about the anti-inflammatory drug in the public domain by September 2001. . . .

[Ed. Note: Tony went on to observe thus:]

. . . .Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, noting that Merck initially insisted there were other explanations for the increased risk, said, "How would the most diligent plaintiffs have gone about finding out whether Merck really had no good-faith belief" in those alternate theories. . . .

Justice Antonin Scalia also suggested that in the early stages there was "simply substantial evidence of inaccuracy," not of the kind of fraud needed to trigger a securities suit. . . .

My take? Ex-CEO Fred Hassan is going to need that refurbished Newark-branch Warburg Pincus office/janitors' closet to be fully-operational by Christmas. Heh.

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