Now, that’s having a tough season

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Mike Lamb.jpgStros reserve firstbaseman Mike Lamb is having a bad season. Coming off the best season of his career in 2004 (11 RCAA/.356 OBP/.511 SLG./867 OPS), Lamb has regressed this season to an Ausmusian -11/.259/.389/.649 stat line.
Consistent with Lamb’s futility at the plate this season, in the Stros’ win on Wednesday against the Nationals this week, Lamb should have been credited with a walk in the sixth inning, but instead stayed in the box and popped out to third after the plate umpire lost track of balls and strikes. At least Lamb has retained his sense of humor, as reflected by his observation about the incident in today’s Chronicle:

“What a year I’m having. Now I’m making outs on walks.”

Abramoff indicted

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abramoffj.jpgJack Abramoff, a lobbyist who is a top Republican fund-raiser and political ally of Houston congressman and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, was indicted yesterday in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida on charges of defrauding two lenders in his purchase of a casino cruise line five years ago. Mr. DeLay is not mentioned in the indictment and apparently had no involvement in the activities that led to this particular indictment. As noted in these previous posts, the Justice Department is also investigating Mr. Abramoff for allegedly bilking four Indian tribes he represented in connection with his lobbying business.

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KPMG noose tightens

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kpmg logo8.jpgOn the heels of this post from yesterday, this NY Times article reports on the plea bargain of Domenick DeGiorgio, a 42 year old former managing director at the New York branch office of Munich-based HVB, (formally known as Bayerische Hypo & Vereinsbank) under which he pled guilty to fraud, conspiracy and tax-evasion charges in the federal government’s first criminal conviction in its investigation of allegedly fraudulent tax shelters that KPMG LLP created and promoted. Here are the previous posts on the KPMG tax shelter saga.

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The Power of Pork

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metrocar8.jpgTory Gattis and I recently generated some interesting discussion regarding mass transit generally and light rail in particular in a series of posts (here, here and here). Part of the psychology in favor of the light rail projects discussed in that blog thread is that the federal government — regardless of economic merit — is going to throw some political pork barrel funds at light rail projects, so light rail proponents reason that we might as well claim our fair share.
Although that line of reasoning is understandable, it doesn’t really make me feel any better about the pork being distributed in the first place. This Washington Post article provides a good analysis of the politics of the new transportation bill:

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The high price of asserting innocence

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plea bargains.jpgA frequent topic on this blog has been the government’s questionable tactic of bludgeoning business executives into plea bargains by playing on the executive’s fear of a draconian prison sentence (often an effective life sentence) if the executive has the temerity to assert his or her Constitutional right to a fair trial by jury. Although prosecutors justify such tactics as a reasonable tool in seeking the truth about criminal acts of others, plea bargainers often undermine that goal by testifying falsely in order to obtain the favorable terms of the deal.
In this post, Ellen Podgor — who blogs with Peter Henning over at the smart White Collar Crime Prof blog — compares the sentences to date arising out of the prosecutions of former WorldCom executives, notes the wide disparity between those who cooperated with the government and those who did not, and then asks the right questions:

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KPMG strikes deal in tax shelter probe

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kpmg logo6.jpgYou know that the criminalization of business in the post-Enron era has become routine when it’s newsworthy that the government has decided not to use its prosecutorial power to prompt another Arthur Andersen-type meltdown of a major accounting firm.
This NY Times article reports that KPMG and federal prosecutors have agreed in principle to a deferred prosecution deal under which the accounting firm would avoid a devastating criminal indictment for its involvement in the creation and promotion of questionable tax shelters in return for KPMG paying a hefty fine, which the Times article reports could be as much as half a billion dollars. Here are the earlier posts on the KPMG tax shelter probe and related problems.

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A special talent

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coin.jpgI have no idea where my nephew Richard comes up with such things, but the two minute video that he links to in this blog post is pretty darn clever.
By the way, Rich, I highly recommend that you do not attempt to perfect the skill evidenced in the video while juggling your distractions this fall at Northwestern University Law School. Not that it would interfere with your studies that much. Rather, too many professors would be pestering you to teach them how to do it! ;^)

The PGA at Baltusrol is this week

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Baltusrol.jpgThe PGA Golf Championship begins tomorrow at Baltusrol Golf Club in Springfield, N.J. Golf Digest has its usual excellent coverage here, including this nifty interactive map.
By the way, this interesting Golf Digest article on the 1965 PGA Tournament — which was won by the late Houstonian Dave Marr — includes a funny anecdote about Ben Hogan that Dave passed along to me years ago over lunch at Houston’s Lochinvar Golf Club. Dave loved telling this story and did so humorously, so my written rendition of it cannot do Dave’s oral version justice. But the story went something like this:

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The SOX drain

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SoxLogo2.jpgThe Sarbanes-Oxley legislation (pdf) is an example of government at its worst — a knee-jerk reaction that addressed a relatively small problem (i.e., crooked businesspeople) that had little to do with the circumstances (i.e., the bursting of a stock market bubble) that prompted legislators to think that they needed to do something in the first place. Inasmuch as the SOX legislation coincided with the beginning of this blog, the counterproductive nature of the legislation has been a regular subject here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
In this timely article, financial columnist Bruce Bartlett (his blog is here) notes that the SOX effect on the economy is only getting worse, and reviews the growing body of research on the negative economic impact of SOX:

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Disney Board wins the corporate case of the decade

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disney4.JPGThe Delaware Chancellory Court issued its ruling yesterday in favor of the Walt Disney Company Board of Directors 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, here and here). You can download a copy of the 175 page decision here and, based on a preliminary review, it appears that Larry Ribstein nailed it with his earlier prediction, which also provides excellent background on the fact and legal issues involved in the case. H’mm, I wonder if Professor Ribstein got any odds on his bet on the outcome of the decision?
As noted in this earlier post, check in at the Conglomerate blog for a discussion of the Disney decision by an outstanding group of corporate law scholars. Should be highly entertaining.

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