Irony Alert -- From Earlier This Month -- Ex-CEO Fred Hassan

In view of my immediately prior item (updating the Cain v. Hassan proceedings), this bit of "will to win" Fred Hassan video advice rings with a loud gong of irony:

And, to make my point entirely obvious, here is a snippet from the amended derivative action complaint:

. . . .This action seeks redress for the Defendants' collective and individual breaches of their fiduciary duties of loyalty, good faith, candor, due care, and their knowing, reckless gross negligence and/or conscious disregard of their duties in, inter alia: (i) suppressing the results of the ENHANCE study after the negative results were known to insiders; (ii) allowing the continued dissemination of false and misleading marketing efforts on behalf of ZETIA and VYTORIN while in possession of the unfavorable ENHANCE results; (iii) deceiving the investing public regarding Schering-Plough's business, operations, disappointing results of its number one product, Cholesterol Franchise by making false statements about the continued expectation of revenue from ZETIA/VYTORIN; (iv) falsely inflating the intrinsic value of Schering common stock; (iv) failing to properly implement, oversee and maintain appropriate and adequate accounting and business ethics, internal controls, practices and procedures; (v) enabling Officer and Insider Defendants to sell almost $40 million of their privately held Schering shares while in possession of material adverse non-public infonnation about the Company; (vi) granting the executives millions of dollars in incentive bonuses although they lost the Company and public shareholders many millions of dollars of market capitalization; (vii) harming the value of the Company by their illegal and unethical conduct; and (vii) expending tens or hundred of millions of dollars in attorney fees to defend the miscreant Defendants. . . .

Indeed -- which one is the real Fred Hassan, I wonder? The one on the video -- or the one who has now crushed the life out of three massive and previously successful public life-science companies in a row, with mismanagement -- and perhaps, subtle strategies of obfuscation? Which one, indeed?