The blogosphere has finally responded to New York AG (“attorney general” or “aspiring governor,” take your pick) Eliot Spitzer‘s campaign of criminalizing business, which recently crossed the line from merely misguided to petty and vindictive.
Check out Spitzer Watch, which is “exposing the hypocrisy of New York State Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Eliot Spitzer.”
My sense is that this is going to be a very busy blog.
Larry Ribstein of the University of Illinois Law School pens the smart Ideoblog that examines an eclectic combination of issues and subjects relating to corporate and securities law, regulation, business crime, economics, and film, among others. In particular, the blog contributions of Professor Ribstein and UCLA Law Professor Stephen Bainbridge of ProfessorBainbridge.com over the past couple of years have done more for the understanding of corporate and securities law issues for professionals and the general public than any other resource of which I am aware.
In this remarkably creative and insightful post, Professor Ribstein predicts the Delaware Chancellory Court’s decision in the corporate case of the decade — i.e., the civil lawsuit over The Walt Disney Co. board’s decision to pay Michael Ovitz a rather generous severance package for essentially doing nothing during his short stay at Disney (earlier posts on the case are here and here). Regardless of whether Professor Ribstein correctly predicts the outcome, his analysis of the case is masterful and should be required reading for anyone who ever deals with corporate governance issues.
Before the blogosphere, this is the type of analysis that would be found only in a thinly-read professional journal or, at best, perhaps buried deep in the op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal or Financial Times. But now, this type of insight is readily available at all times for a much larger number of people than would read any of the more limited mediums. Just another example of how the blogosphere is redefining the way in which specialized information and wisdom is being delivered to our society and the world.
Jury selection begins today in Angleton, Texas in the first personal injury/wrongful death trial against Merck & Co. for alleged non-disclosure of the risks of taking the pain relieving drug Vioxx. Angleton is a small town in a plaintiff-friendly county about an hour south of downtown Houston. Talented Houston-based personal injury trial lawyer Mark Lanier has been receiving quite a bit of free publicity about the upcoming trial (here is the NY Times article and an earlier WSJ ($) article is here), and here are several previous posts on Merck and Vioxx.
Mr. Lanier’s effectiveness as a trial lawyer is in no small part attributable to the fact that he is a devout Christian who regularly teaches a Bible Study class at his church in Houston. Such familiarity with the Bible typically resonates with jurors in small Texas towns, who often rationalize tenuous liability and damage issues through Biblical associations.
Curiously, as Professor Ribstein has pointed out, Mr. Lanier’s case against Merck is based largely on the very un-Biblical concept of resentment and not the truth. Merck pulled Vioxx from the market in October, 2004 after a study showed that it increased the risk of heart attack or stoke, but not necessarily the risk of death. That move prompted Cleveland Clinic cardiologist Eric Topol to go postal over Merck’s handling of the drug, contending that Vioxx resulted in 15 cases of heart attack or stroke per 1,000 patients.
Houston-based Pogo Producing Co. is apparently ready to announce as early as today the $1.8 billion acquisition of Northrock Resources, which owns the western Canada crude-oil and natural-gas properties of Unocal Corp. Pogo has long been one of the best managed and most profitable independent exploration and production companies in Houston, although it’s stock price has not kept pace with industry competitors during the recent run-up in energy prices over the past year.
Inasmuch as Pogo has a market cap of about $3.3 billion, the acquisition is a big bite for the company, which has been selling off interests in a couple of foreign countries recently to raise cash for the transaction. The deal will increase Pogo’s proven oil and gas reserves by 45% as the company will acquire 644 billion cubic feet of natural gas equivalent of estimated proven reserves on about 300,000 acres in Western Canada and another 1.1 million of undeveloped acres. Pogo projects that the Northrock properties contain more than 200 billion cubic feet equivalent of very high quality probable reserves and another 500 billion cubic feet equivalent of possible reserves. The deal reflects Pogo’s bet that energy prices will remain high for the forseeable future, and the company has entered into hedging investments to cover most of its production volumes through 2007 in an effort to protect its rate of return on the investment.
The well-managed but relatively small Pogo is an attractive acquisition target itself in the hot energy industry, but Pogo’s longtime chairman and CEO, Paul G. Van Wagenen — an attorney by background who is one of Houston’s most unassuming and delightful business executives — has built Pogo systematically over the past 35 years and simply will not give up Pogo’s independence unless a takeover deal is too sweet for Pogo’s shareholders to turn down.