RE: Bill Murpy Writes.............Murphy writes a daily comment and has mentioned it many times since the announcement. For example he wrote the other day:
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I have received a fair amount of feedback on the resolution of the Barrick/Blanchard Coin case in New Orleans Federal Court. Everyone expressed natural disappointment. Some even expressed anger for various reasons and a very few suggested it reflected negatively on GATA. Perhaps it would be helpful to briefly put all of this into perspective.
GATA financed and backed Reg Howe’s court case in Boson Federal Court against The Gold Cartel four years ago. The Boston federal judge did not disparage Reg’s claims one bit, as many in the mainstream gold world had expected. The judge dismissed the case on technicalities, going on to say that a gold company should bring forth the case because of "legal standing" issues.
Which is just what happened. Blanchard Coin took the case further and went after JP Morgan Chase and Barrick Gold. The case made it to the Discovery level, quite an accomplishment. GATA’s Chris Powell was right on with his contention in his Saturday morning GATA email missive, Gold seems to have won the Blanchard case:
Nevertheless, the outline of a settlement of the Blanchard lawsuit has been apparent for two years and may have been inevitable for that long as well -- ever since November 23, 2003, when Barrick Chairman Peter Munk returned to the podium of the Gold Investment Summit conference in London to repudiate his conference-keynoting speech of just 24 hours before, announcing that Barrick would stop hedging its gold production for 10 years.
Munk was a late substitution at the conference for Barrick CEO Greg Wilkins, who withdrew, MineWeb reported, "to attend to some urgent business in New Orleans" -- home of Blanchard and site of the U.S. District Court where Blanchard's lawsuit against Barrick had been filed.
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(For further input see Chris P’s complete email in the Appendix)
This was an extraordinary day in the history of the gold market … one hailed by GATA at the time and ignored by the mainstream gold world. The Gold Cartel lost the power of one of its manipulation tools at the time (increased hedging by Barrick). Surely, this stunning and humiliating reversal for Barrick from one day to the next had to have made an impact on the decision making process of other gold hedgers. After all, if the mighty Barrick Gold had been cowed and was changing its policy, why would not others follow suit?
The price of gold had been rising for two years to the $375 level as of November 23, 2003. After the Barrick announcement, gold kept moving higher, taking out the $450 mark about a year ago. It struggled since then, falling back in the first half of 2005, trading between $420 and $440 for the most part. Coincidence, or not, gold took off for the $490 level after Gold Rush 21. Of tremendous satisfaction to the GATA camp is that gold has made its move mostly without a number of the historic attributions from the gold pundits for the reasons it would move higher, like a weak dollar, etc.
Gold is making its big move because the rigging of the gold market is gradually falling apart. The suit brought by Blanchard Coin was an important aspect of the move we are all enjoying at the moment … and it’s only beginning. Don Doyle, Blanchard Coin CEO, ought to be saluted and congratulated for his efforts, which have helped us all so much. He took on some powerful people with a whole lot of money. Think how much his legal costs must have been the past couple of years … the time and effort his firm put into this case.
Sure, we all would have liked a different outcome. However, what Don Doyle did was an important step in winning of The Gold War. Don spent his time and his money, while we all voiced opinions … ones which cost us little time and no money.
Someday we might find out the real story of how the case was concluded. For now it is a time to be grateful for Don Doyle and Blanchard Coin.