Einhorn/Greenlight slapped by Canadian Judge, ALD FOIA data now available

David Einhorn, brash young head of Greenlight Capital, was basically swatted by a Canadian judge for his role in trying to bully a prominent Canadian company into dancing to his tune.

Among the tricks this particular hedge fund used was to tape phone calls without the other party knowing it, and try to draw them into making compromising remarks.

Sound kind of sleazy? That's the hedge fund game, and how it's played, I guess - at least, how it's played with some of these guys. All's fair, as long as you win. It's all about the money, and if you have to bend some rules to get your way, it's only the losers and the whiners who complain.

Interestingly, though, Greenlight whines up a storm in order to try to force their will on a company uninterested in playing. It's the equivalent of a hedge fund temper tantrum, and the articles and court documents (particularly page 38) are revealing.

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Speaking of revealing hedge fund conduct, did everyone catch that the guy SAC had relied on to be their investigator in the FFH case, and who was apparently credulously believed by many a NY journalist, was arrested by the FBI for wire fraud charges? Specifically, for defrauding his former employer of over $5 million?

Now there's a credible party..

Sort of a familiar pattern here today. NY-based hedge fund choagie involved in un-ethical dirty tricks against Canadian company.

Seems to be a lot of that going around these days. Wonder if there was a business plan circulated, or if they all got the same idea around the same time at the hockey-rink poker game?

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Did I mention that it is turning out that Refco seldom told the truth about anything, per the latest revelations of misdeeds there? Makes one wonder what the auditors were doing while all this was going on.

So here's a question: How did self-regulation work with Refco? Did that do what it was supposed to do? My take is that it sort of didn't.

And here's another questions: Is Refco an isolated incident, or is this a peek at how Wall Street does business when they think nobody's watching - which given the opacity of the clearing and settlement system is pretty much all the time?

In 1933, the Pecora hearings treated the public to a glimpse at how larcenous virtually every player on Wall Street was.

Do we have any evidence that has changed? Spyro? Cat got your tongue?

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ALD seems to be taking some hits from the Lapdog today, which tells me that the bad guys are still in there, trying to bring the company down.

From his little piece:

"More Investigations at Allied?

It's old had that Allied Capital (ald) has been in the cross hairs of regulators. As the company has stated in numerous SEC filings, it was notified in June 2004 by the SEC that the SEC was conducting an informal investigation of the company. On December 22, 2004, the company said it received letters from the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia requesting that records of Allied's Business Loan Express unit be preserved in connection with a criminal investigation. The  investigation, the company said, related to "portfolio valuation" and Business Loan express.

Now hear this: In its latest 10-Q the company added further disclosure to say that the Office of the Inspector General of the SBA and the Justice Department "have been conducting investigations into the lending activities of Business Loan Express and its Detroit office.

The beat goes on..."

For anyone unfamiliar with ALD, they were the target for years of slanderous allegations - completely unfounded - from the same cartel of hedge funds who targeted ACAS, OVTI, NFI, OSTK, NFLX, TASR, NAVR, HANS, TTWO, KKD, MSO, etc. etc. All the same names that bash those companies and more (FFH, Biovail) have taken whacks at ALD at one time or another. Completely coincidentally, here's the 13F of Copper River (formerly Rocker Partners), one of the hedge funds so unjustly accused of perpetrating a scheme against OSTK, using Gradient, who also features prominently in the Biovail and FFH suit against SAC. Isn't it fun how many familiar names are there as put holdings, or "long" positions (which can be lent out to short and still appear long via repo agreements).

That little cabal was able to tank the price, as they were able to do with virtually all of the above, on a frivolous SEC probe that went nowhere, but cut the stock price drastically. The FOIA data shows you how the FTDs went through the roof, even as Reg SHO was busy, "Working."

Note how Herb simply neglects to mention that ALD's SEC investigation went nowhere and turned up nothing.

When the lapdog does his usual backhand, where he twists facts and ignores positives to create an air of danger (gee, where have we seen that before) you can bet that the bad guys are in the mix again. That's my bet.

Huh.

If I was a lawmaker or a regulator, this would be so hard. If only there was a sign, or some sort of common thread.

Hmmmmmmmm.