Post by
trollbusters on Sep 30, 2013 11:55pm
What Geo et al. have done is fundamentally wrong in my book
Just joined this forum but have been occasionally posting my thoughts on Yahoo. I'm very troubled by Geo trying to hide behind whistleblower status to justify poor quality so-called "research" with inflammatory conclusions far beyond evidentiary support. If we take out hearsay evidence, there is no admissible evidence.
I was a whistleblower (under Sarb Ox provisions) and know what that's like. In order to earn such protected status as the law provides, you cannot profit from your efforts by shorting the stock and buying puts or other derivative securities. I did not do this. If I had, I would have been crucified. That is verboten.
Protections under the law are afforded a whistleblower because it is a difficult position and you're being attacked by the company. In my case, I was required to do this under Sarb Ox provisions requiring my "going up the ladder" to report fraud or else I would also come under investigation if the SEC investigated the company. That means reporting my evidence of fraud to the Board. It does not mean shorting and telling your insiders/subscribers all about it, avoiding the Board, and going straight to publication, bypassing peer-review or any form of quality control. In my situation, the Board also hired separate outside counsel to investigate and report back to the Board. That is the proper procedure. The investing public did not know about the allegations or evidence I provided. The Board addressed it and took steps to fix the situation (eventually removed the CEO and restructured a failing business). All was out of the public eye and it showed that sometimes the Sarb Ox provisions can work.
Whistleblower protections are designed to ultimately fix problems with corporations and insure that the investing public is provided with correct and honest information to use for their due diligence. But what Geo did is flat-out wrong. It is so wrong that the we need to blow the whistle on Geo et al.before all of its assets are shifted overseas to avoid creditor attachment.
I have no clue if Geo's allegations and unsupported inflammatory conclusions are correct or not. That is for the independent Board members to figure out, not me. But we should look at this situation because the procedure Geo used is wrong. We should not sit as judge or jury and try to determine who is wright or wrong. Geo did not follow proper procedures. For that, Geo needs to be fined and investigated.
The foregoing is my opinion and is not to be construed as legal advice.