Word: funding
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...jury found a pair of former Bear Stearns hedge-fund managers not guilty of securities fraud. At the center of the case was an e-mail that one of the managers, Matthew Tannin, sent to his colleague Ralph Cioffi indicating he was concerned about the health of their fund. Publicly, Tannin continued to tell investors he was confident the fund would perform well. (See the financial crisis after one year...
...case has drawn attention even though Cioffi and Tannin were relatively unknown. The hedge-fund managers are the only Wall Streeters who have faced criminal charges relating to the subprime-mortgage mess. Because of that, many saw it as a litmus test for cases against others who were thought to have had a role in causing last year's financial crisis. But the case may ultimately have much greater significance. The not-guilty outcome may signal the end of the era of e-mail prosecutions...
John Coffee, a law professor at Columbia University, says the Bear Stearns hedge-fund case, which jurors decided in less than a day, will make prosecutors think twice before bringing a case that hinges on e-mail. Coffee once called e-mail evidence "the biggest advancement in law enforcement since the two-way radio." But the Bear Stearns case and others have caused Coffee to reconsider how powerful e-mails are in court. "The jury was totally unconvinced," says Coffee. "It does not mean all white-collar cases will not go forward, but I do think it will cause prosecutors...
Then there is the case against Cioffi and Tannin. In April 2007, Tannin told Cioffi in an e-mail that there was "simply no way for us to make money - ever," for investors in their fund. Then several days later, Tannin told investors in a conference call that he was "comfortable" that his fund would continue to go up. The e-mail makes it look like Tannin was lying to his investors, but the e-mail that prosecutors cited was just one of many between the two managers. At other times, the managers seemed to be less sure that...
...have taken it too far. "It has led prosecutors to bring cases that might not have been brought otherwise," says Arkin. "The problem is, e-mails can often be confusing. They are brief and often written without a lot of thought." Arkin and others say the Bear Stearns hedge-fund case shows that jurors understand that. Without other evidence, prosecutors will have a hard time convincing jurors that what someone wrote in an e-mail is definitively what they believe. (See the top 10 best business deals...