Tag: O’Quinn

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Lawyer: John O’Quinn

Lawyer

John Maurice O’Quinn (September 4, 1941 – October 29, 2009) was a Texas trial lawyer and founding partner of The O’Quinn Law Firm (formerly known as O’Quinn & Laminack). His firm made its business handling plaintiff’s litigation, including representing clients suing breast implant manufacturers, medical facilities, and tobacco companies. In 2009, O’Quinn, along with his passenger, died in a single car crash in Houston, Texas. There were three class-action law firms, headed by John O’Quinn, pushing back against naked short selling. O’Quinn ‘s firm was one also representing Overstock.com in the Internet retailer’s suit against short seller Rocker Partners LP and research firm Gradient Analytics.

Biography

 

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Lawyer (RIP): John O’Quinn — Won $20B for His Clients Against Banks and Corporations Cheating the Public

Lawyer

John Maurice O’Quinn (September 4, 1941 – October 29, 2009) was a Texas trial lawyer and founding partner of The O’Quinn Law Firm (formerly known as O’Quinn & Laminack). His firm made its business handling plaintiff’s litigation, including representing clients suing breast implant manufacturers, medical facilities, and tobacco companies. In 2009, O’Quinn, along with his passenger, died in a single car crash in Houston, Texas.

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Article: Was John O’Quinn Murdered by Wall Street?

Article - Media

Authorities will look into O’Quinn’s speed in fatal crash

Force uprooted tree

Investigators said it appeared the SUV veered to the left in the 1900 block of Allen Parkway, jumped a curb and careened over a grassy median, crossed the eastbound traffic lanes and hopped another curb onto a second median before smashing into the tree on the south side of the road. Tire marks across the first median show the path of the hurtling Suburban.

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Article: Lawsuit Filed Against Major Financial Institutions Alleging a Conspiracy to Engage in Illegal Naked Short Selling of TASER International Inc. and to Create, Loan and Sell Counterfeit Shares of TASER Stock

Article - Media

Lawsuit Filed Against Major Financial Institutions Alleging a Conspiracy to Engage in Illegal Naked Short Selling of TASER International Inc. and to Create, Loan and Sell Counterfeit Shares of TASER Stock

MarketWatch cited by RGB Communications via Wayback, May 28, 2008

Today the legal consortium of The O’Quinn Law Firm and Christian Smith & Jewell, both of Houston, Texas and Bondurant, Mixson & Elmore, LLP of Atlanta, Georgia filed a Complaint in the State Court of Fulton County, Georgia on behalf of certain shareholders of TASER International Inc. (“TASER”) against eight of the largest Wall Street firms, including Bank of America Securities LLC, Bear Stearns Securities Corp., Credit Suisse USA Inc., Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc., Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc., Morgan Stanley & Co. Inc., UBS Securities LLC.

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Paper: The Deep Capture Story by Mark Mitchell

Paper

The Story of Deep Capture

By Mark Mitchell, with reporting by the Deep Capture Team

The Columbia School of Journalism is our nation’s finest. They grant the Pulitzer Prize, and their journal, The Columbia Journalism Review, is the profession’s gold standard. CJR reporters are high priests of a decaying temple, tending a flame in a land going dark. In 2006 a CJR editor (a seasoned journalist formerly with Time magazine in Asia, The Wall Street Journal Europe, and The Far Eastern Economic Review) called me to discuss suspicions he was forming about the US financial media. I gave him leads but warned, “Chasing this will take you down a rabbit hole with no bottom.” For months he pursued his story against pressure and threats he once described as, “something out of a Hollywood B movie, but unlike the movies, the evil corporations fighting the journalist are not thugs burying toxic waste, they are Wall Street and the financial media itself.” His exposé reveals a circle of corruption enclosing venerable Wall Street banks, shady offshore financiers, and suspiciously compliant reporters at The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, CNBC, and The New York Times. If you ever wonder how reporters react when a journalist investigates them (answer: like white-collar crooks they dodge interviews, lie, and hide behind lawyers), or if financial corruption interests you, then this is for you. It makes Grisham read like a book of bedtime stories, and exposes a scandal that may make Enron look like an afternoon tea.

Introduction By Patrick M. Byrne, Deep Capture Reporter

PDF (69 Pages): Deep Capture Story

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Article: ‘Naked’ short selling is center of looming legal battle

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‘Naked’ short selling is center of looming legal battle

Companies on the defensive seize upon an aggressive form of shorting

Alistair Barr

MarketWatch, 14 June 2006

By one contentious estimate, it’s a big problem plaguing more than 10% of stocks on the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq. An NYSE probe into whether naked shorting was used to force down shares of Vonage Holdings Corp. VG, +3.53% lower during the Internet phone company’s May initial public offering has added fuel to the fire. See full story.

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Article: U.S. Stock Market Commentary by Samex Capital

Article - Media

U.S. Stock Market Commentary by Samex Capital

Samex Capital via RGM Communications via Wayback, 7 February 2005

It seems the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute For Legal Reform has publicly stated their petition of William Donaldson, the chairman of the SEC, asking for an investigation into whether short sellers and the law firm of Milberg Weiss (“MW”) had engaged in securities fraud. MW represented a class action suit led by an investment company that was also shorting the stock of the company targeted by the class action. MW is best known for their role in pursuing class action suits against publicly traded companies.

PDF (2 pages): U.S. Stock Market Commentary by Samex Capital

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Article: DTCC Chief Spokesperson Denies Existence of Lawsuit

Article - Media

DTCC Chief Spokesperson Denies Existence of Lawsuit

Financial Wire cited by RGM Communications via Wayback, 11 May 2004

FinancialWire received a confidential email between a reporter and Stuart Z. Goldstein, Managing Director of Corporate Communications for the Depository Trust and Clearing Corp. in which Goldstein was represented as denying that a lawsuit filed by Nanopierce Technologies (OTCBB: NPCT) exists.

The chief spokesperson for the DTCC, whose board of directors represent a who’s who of financial entities, including Lehman Brothers (NYSE: LEH), Citigroup / Solomon Smith Barney’s Corporate Investment Bank (NYSE: C), and Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MWD), was quoted as stating that the “lawsuit” did not exist and was simply “charges being leveled by internet crackpots.”

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Article: Wall Street’s Next Nightmare?

Article - Media

Wall Street’s Next Nightmare?

Rob Wherry

Forbes, 5 October 2003

From his 23rd-floor suite of offices in Houston’s Lyric Centre, John M. O’Quinn is plotting what he hopes will be his next multibillion-dollar jackpot. Not that the 62-year-old senior partner of O’Quinn, Laminack & Pirtle needs the dough; FORBES estimates his law firm has won $1.5 billion in fees from the makers of silicon breast implants and cigarettes. This time he’s aiming at Wall Street.

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Article: $300M Stock Manipulation Suit Goes Forward

Article - Media, Publications

$300M Stock Manipulation Suit Goes Forward

Mark Hamblett, 30 July 2002

Internet Law Library Inc.’s allegation that it was the victim of “death spiral financing” by defendants who have a long history of stock manipulation states a claim under federal securities laws and will not be dismissed, a federal judge in New York has ruled.

Judge Robert L. Carter for the Southern District of New York rejected motions to dismiss brought by Southridge Capital Management and Cootes Drive LLC, which deny their agents violated a promise to refrain from short-selling shares of Internet Law Library immediately after agreeing to provide $28 million in financing.

Internet Law Library, now known as ITIS Inc. (OTC BB:ITII.OB – News), owns Internet sites specializing in legal research and litigation support services.

The company claims that, in spring 2000, it negotiated with Southridge for capital of up to $28 million, consisting of a $25 million equity line agreement and a $3 million convertible preferred stock purchase that ultimately triggered the lawsuit, Internet Law Library v. Southridge Capital Management, 01 Civ. 6600.

The company alleged that Southridge and its agents, Steve Hicks, Dan Pickett and Christy Constabile, promised to refrain from selling ITIS stock for one year after the closing, and also promised not to manipulate the stock to depress its price.

ITIS Chief Executive Hunter M.A. Carr repeatedly asked Southridge and its agents about his concern on short-selling, and was told several times that Southridge would not engage in the practice. Carr claimed he relied on these representations when he signed the stock purchase agreement on May 11, 2000, with Cootes Drive, a company that replaced Southridge as a signatory at the last minute.
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Article: Internet Law Library, Inc. v. Southridge Capital Management, LLC

Article - Media, Publications

Internet Law Library, Inc. v. Southridge Capital Management, LLC

Smarter Legal Research, 02 February 2002

On January 12, 2001, Internet Law brought suit against Cootes Drive in the Southern District of Texas (the ” Internet Law action” ), the subject of which is a series of agreements including a Stock Purchase Agreement entered into by Cootes Drive with Internet Law and in which Cootes Drive agreed to provide capital to Internet Law through two vehicles, a $3 million convertible preferred stock purchase and a $25 million equity line agreement. The Stock Purchase Agreement specified New York as the exclusive forum for all litigation between the parties.

The gravamen of the complaint, later amended on February 12, 2001, was that Cootes Drive engaged in short-selling and market manipulation of Internet Law’s stock, artificially depressing the price of the stock to a level at which Cootes Drive would no longer be required to provide funding under the equity line pursuant to a provision in the Stock Purchase Agreement that conditioned funding on Internet Law’s stock trading above a specific price. As such, Internet Law alleges that Cootes Drive committed, inter alia, violations of securities laws, both federal and state, common law fraud and fraud in the inducement, and unlawful conspiracy. Continue reading “Article: Internet Law Library, Inc. v. Southridge Capital Management, LLC”

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