RE: RE: Concerned shareholder" My friends father is a tax lawyer in my city of only 80,000 people and he bills out at around $850/hr. Lawyers that deal with public companies are not cheap. If the fees are similar to this (that's assuming that I remember the circular correctly) then a $850/hr lawyer would have to put in around 1100 hrs to rack up a bill of close to a million, which amounts to about half a years work of 40 hr weeks"
Alright, I'm sure you mean well, but you obviously do not have experience with this area. The original poster was right to be suspicious about this transaction. Not saying it's shady, and it could very well be totally legit....but it DOES warrant scrutiny and a call to the company.
One thing I can say for sure is taht if that bill is just for legal fees it most certainly is NOT legit. First of all, while yes, I'm sure that a company could find an $800/hour lawyer for this kind of work, I can assure you that there are plenty of qualified lawyers who will do this work for $300/hour, if that. All the legal work that BVG has needed up until now has been very straight forward, paper pushing stuff. There has been nothing complicated, or anything that requires the extraordinary skills of a lawyer that DOES charge $800/hour.
Also, I would be very incredulous if the company stated that it took their $800.hour lawyer 1100 hours to do the work. I know lawyers like to stretch it out, but that is ridiculous. And even if all that money DID go to a law firm that DID charge that much, then the management should be investigated even more, and severly reprimanded for wasting so much money on jobs that could have been done much, much cheaper. Or if for some bizarre reason it DID cost that much, maybe it would be wise to not use a director's company.....it doesn't look good.
In any case, I think it is entirely appropriate to ask questions about this matter.