Amazon, Borders Face Market-Division Claims
March 31, 2004
According to this story at CNet News, last week a federal district judge in San Francisco said that a private antitrust claim against Amazon and Borders, for allegedly divvying up portions of the on-line book market between them, could proceed to trial. (The judge dismissed a companion price-fixing claim as “ludicrous on its face.”) The claim related to a teaming agreement that Amazon and Borders signed in 2001. The CNet story reports that:
[Judge] Patel said one section of the contract, which is similar to one Amazon inked for the online store of Toys “R” Us, is “troubling.” A restriction prohibiting Borders from competing with Amazon means that “Borders could not even provide overstock books to another online marketer, even if there were no mention online that these books came from Borders,” Patel said.
When the Feds Call: Lessons Learned
from the Martha Stewart Case
March 10, 2004
Well, Martha Stewart has been convicted, as someone said, of covering up a crime that the feds couldn’t prove had been committed. More specifically, she was convicted (generally speaking) of making false statements to federal investigators. What kind of practical lessons does this offer for day-to-day life in the business world?
Martha Stewart Juror Says Her Changing
a Phone Message Brought Her Down
March 8, 2004
This AP story reports some post-trial comments by jurors in the Martha Stewart case. It seems that one of the key pieces of evidence was testimony that Stewart had tried to change a phone message from her stockbroker:
Other jurors said Stewart’s assistant Ann Armstrong, who reluctantly testified that Stewart tried to alter a phone record of a message from her stockbroker, was the key witness leading them to the domestic diva’s conviction.
Armstrong testified that Stewart sat down at Armstrong’s desk to change a message from her broker, Peter Bacanovic, that informed her that he thought the ImClone stock price would start falling.
“She ultimately gave the testimony that was going to bring Martha down. That was a very important piece,” said juror Chappell Hartridge, one of six jurors who spoke to “Dateline NBC” in interviews that aired Sunday night.
“We all believed her 100 percent,” juror Adam Sachs said of Armstrong.
This is another example of a brutal fact of legal life: In a trial, evidence can often be confusing, difficult to understand, or even contradictory. If you are accused of wrong-doing, it may not be entirely clear whether what you did was wrong. (This can be especially true in intellectual-property cases, by the way.) On the other hand, evidence-tampering is very easy to understand. If jurors conclude that you tampered with evidence, they may well seize on that as “proxy evidence” that your actions must indeed have been wrong, otherwise why would you have tried to cover your tracks?
It bears repeating: If you’ve been sued, or if you think you’re going to be sued, or if you hear that government authorities are investigating your actions, DON’T destroy or tamper with potential evidence. The chances are you’ll only be hurting yourself.
Martha Stewart - Targeted to Send a Message?
March 7, 2004
Today’s New York Times has this article (registration required) about possible reasons that Martha Stewart might have been prosecuted more vigorously than had she not been a celebrity. The article quotes a former prosecutor about something I’d heard before, namely that prosecutors especially like to go after high-profile people pour encourager les autres (see here for an explanation of this French phrase and its provenance):
Prosecuting someone famous can help to change behavior, though, and appeals to prosecutors seeking favorable media attention, said Roland Riopelle, a former federal prosecutor who practices at Secarz & Riopelle in New York.
“The government is in many cases quicker to pull the trigger on a public figure than a private citizen, and I think Martha Stewart was a victim of that,” Mr. Riopelle said. “The truth is, quite honestly, it’s all the more exciting and it creates all the more press.”
As a result, he concluded, “They’re more likely to charge a prominent person for a piddly crime than they are an ordinary Joe.”
Bowling for Dollars: Junk FAXer Settles for $1M+
March 5, 2004
According to an article at law.com:
A bowling business that sent out as many as 352,000 unsolicited faxes will settle a class action for up to $1 million cash and $1.5 million in coupons. However, it’s not clear how much of the money will be paid out.
The settlement came under criticism from a lawyer with his own fax case against the bowling company, AMF Bowling Centers, who said the company was getting off too easily.
Excellent - maybe the word will spread and these pests will quit wasting our FAX paper.
For more information about junk faxes, see www.junkfaxes.org (apparently hosted by a consumer) or www.tcpa.com (apparently a law firm site).