First, outspoken actor Alec Baldwin goes on a radio talk show.
Then, Fox News pundit Sean Hannity calls in.
The result?
A quintessential example of the state of political discourse on talk radio.
Demogoguery continues to sell well in America.
Hat tip to TigerHawk for the link to the story.
Stephen Cooper, the fellow who oversaw Enron’s liquidation for a couple of years, has backed off his request for a $25 million “success” fee (earlier post here) — on top of his $1.3 million annual salary and tens of millions already paid to his company for its services in the Enron case — after the U.S. Trustee examining his request pointed out some “billing issues” to the Bankruptcy Judge overseeing the Enron chapter 11 case. Mr. Cooper now is requesting “only” a $12.5 million success fee in the Enron case, where creditors holding unsecured claims will probably receive somewhere between a 15% – 25% dividend on their claims.
Something tells me that Lynn LoPucki is not pleased.
In the post-Enron era of criminalizing business, a business executive’s attorney-client privilege with the company counsel of the executive has already become largely illusory (posts here, here here and here). Now, according to this Nathan Koppel/WSJ ($) article, the government is now threatening to go Arthur Andersen on a New Hampshire company unless the company breaches its contractual obligation to provide counsel to a company executive that is accused of a crime.
The fee-payment issue has become an issue over the past several years after the 2003 “Thompson Memo,” former Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson’s dubious directive that advised prosecutors how to induce companies to cooperate with the government in order to avoid an indictment and an Arthur Andersen-type meltdown. The memo advises that a company’s willingness to advance legal fees to “culpable employees” may signal a lack of cooperation. The nonpayment of legal fees has been a huge issue in the ongoing tax-shelter prosecution against former executives of KPMG LLP, where the accounting firm has not reimbursed its former executives since 2004.
In the New Hampshire case, five former executives of technology company Enterasys Networks Inc. are charged with accounting fraud. The case was scheduled to go to trial in Concord this month, but the defense received a three-month reprieve after federal prosecutors were accused of misconduct in pressuring the company to cut off legal fees to the defendants. At a March 7 hearing, U.S. District Judge Paul Barbadoro voiced concern over the prosecutors conduct, but he did not sanction the prosecutors and Enterasys reluctantly agreed to pay past-due fees and costs of defense counsel and to cover future costs.
The article notes that, over the past three years, federal prosecutors in New York, Alabama and now New Hampshire have placed companies at risk of being indicted out of business if they fail to cut off payments to an executive’s defense counsel. Clear Thinkers favorite Ellen Podgor of the White Collar Criminal Prof blog comments in the article:
The Chronicle’s Stros beat writer, Jose de Jesus Ortiz, reports today that the insurer of the Stros disability insurance policy on slugger Jeff Bagwell has denied the Stros’ claim that Bagwell’s arthritic right shoulder has rendered him disabled under the terms of the policy. Previous posts on the Bagwell disability claim are here and the post from the past weekend on Bags’ impending retirement is here.
The insurer’s position is not particularly surprising. Although Bagwell cannot throw a baseball well enough to play Major League Baseball in the National League, he was in the same condition last September when the Stros activated him to pinch-hit in the final regular season games and the playoffs. Consequently, the insurer contends that nothing has changed since Bags was physically capable of playing last fall and, thus, he continues not to be disabled.
On the other hand, the Stros are contending that the fact that Bags was able to handle partial duties in the fall (i.e., bat, but not throw) fails to establish that he is not disabled now. The Stros contend that Bagwell’s disability was not finally confirmed until January 12, 2006, when orthopedic expert Dr. James Andrews examined Bags, according to Stros’ counsel, Wayne Fisher:
“He was throwing the ball at 35 mph at what distance he could throw. On Jan. 12, we know total disability began, because Dr. James Andrews, a world-renowned physician, told him. That was the first time any physician had ever said that to Jeff. If Connecticut General Insurance Co. can tell us what person in that insurance company knows more about whether Jeff Bagwell was totally disabled on Jan. 12 than Dr. James Andrews, I’ll be very interested in cross-examining him.”
Fisher is a first-rate plaintiffs lawyer and an old friend of Stros owner, Drayton McLane. The success or failure of these types of claims are notoriously dependent on the policy provisions, particularly those pertaining to the definition of disability and the litigation forum. If the policy requires arbitration of the claim, then my sense is that the Stros have a tough case. On the other hand, if Fisher can get the insurer into state district court in Harris County, then the home field advantage definitely favors the Stros.