# Sirius Stockholders Sue Sirius Management



## Dolly (Jan 30, 2007)

Sirius Stockholders are after Sirius Management including, of course, Mel :lol: The group calls itself "Save Sirius". I wonder why no one tried to save XM  
http://www.radioink.com/HeadlineEntry.asp?hid=143924&pt
=todaynews


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## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

> The group, which claims more than 500 members, is asking the court to stop Sirius XM from issuing more stock or from *implementing an up to one-for-50 reverse stock split.* In an SEC filing earlier this month, Sirius XM said it would be seeking shareholders' approval for a stock split of between one-for-10 and one-for-50, as well as permission to issue more stock.


With the stock closing today at 32 CENTS per share, things will be much worse for shareholders if they DON'T do some kind of reverse split. If it stays below $1.00 for a certain period of time it will be delisted and probably drop still more.


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## djlong (Jul 8, 2002)

NASDAQ's de-listing rules have been suspended for the time being. It's the sahre dilution, more than anything else, that is driving this suit.


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## SamC (Jan 20, 2003)

Shareholder Derivative Suit Abuse is second only to Class Action Abuse in our broken civil justice system. A stock goes down and some lawyer gets millions to go away, shareholders get a few cents each.


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## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

SamC said:


> Shareholder Derivative Suit Abuse is second only to Class Action Abuse in our broken civil justice system. A stock goes down and some lawyer gets millions to go away, shareholders get a few cents each.


Yep. Except in this case if the shareholders get a few cents they have doubled their investment.


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## Dolly (Jan 30, 2007)

Richard King said:


> Yep. Except in this case if the shareholders get a few cents they have doubled their investment.


+1 That was a good one


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## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

Richard King said:


> With the stock closing today at 32 CENTS per share, things will be much worse for shareholders if they DON'T do some kind of reverse split. If it stays below $1.00 for a certain period of time it will be delisted and probably drop still more.


And I thought the merger was supposed to make all the financial troubles all hunky doory.


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## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

It would have been much better if it hadn't taken well over a year for approvals (maybe).


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## Dolly (Jan 30, 2007)

Richard King said:


> It would have been much better if it hadn't taken well over a year for approvals (maybe).


I think it would have been best if two drowning in red ink companies hadn't tried to grab on to each other to try to stay afloat. I mean if I'm drowning I would want to grab on to someone or something that wasn't also drowning. I guess that was too much for the Sat. Radio people to figure out


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## SamC (Jan 20, 2003)

It may simply be that sat radio is a bad idea. It may simply be that there is not a break even amount of people willing to pay for it.

It may also be that paying big money for "talent" and for "exclusive content" was not the right path.


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## djlong (Jul 8, 2002)

SamC: While I can certainly agree in principal to your 2nd point about overpaying for talent (witness Howard and the second NASCAR deal - XM passed on those specifically because the parties wanted too much money), I have to say that 19 million subscribers don't exactly scream to me "insufficient market"


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## Dolly (Jan 30, 2007)

djlong said:


> SamC: While I can certainly agree in principal to your 2nd point about overpaying for talent (witness Howard and the second NASCAR deal - XM passed on those specifically because the parties wanted too much money), I have to say that 19 million subscribers don't exactly scream to me "insufficient market"


But I have always read that Sirius counted cars on car lots that had Sirius radios as being part of their subscribers! If those cars haven't been sold, then they don't have subscribers yet. Also what is the count now? I know I'm not the only subscriber they have lost.


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## cweave02 (Oct 12, 2007)

Now, don't blame the lawyers! Those suits take a lot of time and work, for which the shareholders do not pay a penny, and the lawyers work for free until the contingency ship comes in. The shareholders have a lot of 'indignity' and want to sue to 'make a point' but do not want to pay for it by the hour or up front - so they are happy. What's the problem?


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## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

The problem is that MANY "shareholder" lawsuits in the past have been found to have been built on fraud. The lawyers have friends buy shares and become the chief plaintiff, filing for class action based on friendly (to the lawyers) shareholders.


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## Dolly (Jan 30, 2007)

Richard King said:


> The problem is that MANY "shareholder" lawsuits in the past have been found to have been built on fraud. The lawyers have friends buy shares and become the chief plaintiff, filing for class action based on friendly (to the lawyers) shareholders.


Now Mr. King would lawyers really do that  :lol:


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

Richard King said:


> The problem is that MANY "shareholder" lawsuits in the past have been found to have been built on fraud. The lawyers have friends buy shares and become the chief plaintiff, filing for class action based on friendly (to the lawyers) shareholders.


Yes, but no matter who the plaintiff is there is either a factually valid cause of action for the lawsuit or there isn't. Being the named plaintiff in a class action is no great joy and doesn't get them much of anything other than the agreed up on settlement.

When you look at the state of our economy and to what degree some of these executives have destroyed huge companies...perhaps shareholders should be much, much more vigilant rather than less so?


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## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

> Being the named plaintiff in a class action is no great joy and doesn't get them much of anything other than the agreed up on settlement.


Actually, what some lawyers have been doing is giving kickbacks to their buddies that they sign up as chief plaintiffs. In this case it is actually a "great joy" as they make quite a bit of money being professional plaintiffs. At least one large law firm that was responsible for a VERY large percentage of "shareholder" lawsuits was shut down for doing this. Often these cases are settled out of court just to get the lawyers to go away. It's simply extortion in MANY if not most cases.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

Richard King said:


> Actually, what some lawyers have been doing is giving kickbacks to their buddies that they sign up as chief plaintiffs. In this case it is actually a "great joy" as they make quite a bit of money being professional plaintiffs. At least one large law firm that was responsible for a VERY large percentage of "shareholder" lawsuits was shut down for doing this. Often these cases are settled out of court just to get the lawyers to go away. It's simply extortion in MANY if not most cases.


You're talking about Millberg, Weiss I assume. They were caught giving kickbacks and they were fined heavily ($75 million). *They were not shutdown*. Once again, the fact that some lawyers were greedy and broke the law doesn't speak at all to the validity of the claims they brought. Millberg, Weiss deserved the fine and I hope that the lawyers involved are disbarred. However, this makes them no better than some of inept or criminal executive scum that was running the companies they were suing.

Oh and when someone settles a lawsuit for multiple millions of dollars and claims it is cheaper than going to court they're just lying. It's not...it is, however, cheaper than losing and that's what they expect will happen when they settle.

Tell me...what should a shareholder do when the find out that the officers of a corporation they have invested in has taken actions that hurt the corporation, imperil the shareholder's investment and in many cases personally benefit those officers? Should they write a nasty letter? Show up at the shareholder's meeting and hold up a sign?


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## BlueMonk (Oct 29, 2007)

Wonder how many of those sueing really examined what the merger promised??? Cutting 22% of the workforce and consolidating back office is not going to make up for the years of overspending by both companies. Bankruptcy is my prediction.


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## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milberg_Weiss


> On May 18, 2006,[2][3] the firm and two of its named partners, David J. Bershad and Steven G. Schulman (Schulman resigned in December 2006), were indicted by United States Attorney Debra Wong Yang of the United States District Court for the Central District of California on various counts, including racketeering, mail fraud, and bribery. The charges include claims that Milberg Weiss paid portions of its legal fees to plaintiffs in order to induce them to sue.[4][5] By January 2007, more than half of the firm's partners had left the firm. As of June 2008, the firm's website lists only 53 full-time attorneys (29 partners and 24 associates).
> 
> Four longtime Milberg Weiss partners have pled guilty to federal charges, including Steven Schulman, David Bershad, William Lerach, and Melvyn Weiss. On March 20, 2008, Melvyn Weiss announced through his attorney that he would plead guilty in exchange for an 18 to 33 month prison sentence and fines and restitution of $10 million. [6] On Monday February 11, 2008, Lerach was sentenced to two years in federal prison, two years' probation, fined $250,000 and ordered to complete 1,000 hours of community service. Bershad will pay $250,000 in fines and forfeit $7.75 million. Bershad was sentenced to six months of incarceration in October 2008.[7] On June 16, 2008, U.S. prosecutors in Los Angeles agreed to dismiss the indictment against the firm, under a non-prosecution agreement that requires Milberg to pay $75 million to settle the charges.
> 
> Mel Weiss was sentenced to 30 months of incarceration on Monday June 2, 2008


Actually, they were shut down. It may not have been shut down by court order, but the result was the same. The name Milberg still exists, but it isn't the same company.

I don't think the penalties were enough. I think that EVERYTHING that these crooks owned should have been taken away from them down to the shirts on their backs and then thrown in prison, owning only their orange jump suits. People like this make a mockery of the justice system.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aGqfpC4ZjoAw&refer=home


> Weiss's firm collected $1.7 billion in legal fees and expenses between 1995 and 2005, according to a study commissioned by the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform. The firm also handled 43 percent of the 755 shareholder class actions that settled....
> 
> Milberg, indicted in 2006, and attorney Paul Selzer are the only remaining defendants and face an August trial before Walter. The law firm has previously rejected the indictment as flawed and twice sought unsuccessfully to have the charges thrown out.


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## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

By the way, I have no problem with HONEST lawyers. My brother is a judge and before that was a lawyer for many years. He was an honest lawyer when he was practicing.


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## Dolly (Jan 30, 2007)

BlueMonk said:


> Wonder how many of those sueing really examined what the merger promised??? Cutting 22% of the workforce and consolidating back office is not going to make up for the years of overspending by both companies. Bankruptcy is my prediction.


A small point may be, but why does the group call itself Saving Sirius? The name of the company now is Sirius XM. So do they only want to save the Sirius part of Sirius XM?


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## Greg Bimson (May 5, 2003)

I believe the entity's legal name is "Sirius Satellite Radio", while they are marketing themselves as "Sirius XM Radio".


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

Richard King said:


> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milberg_Weiss
> 
> Actually, they were shut down. It may not have been shut down by court order, but the result was the same. The name Milberg still exists, but it isn't the same company.
> 
> ...


Actually, the law firm was not shut down and it exists today - read the link you posted. The lawyers that were guilty of crimes are no longer with that firm and lost their license to practice (some went to jail), many others left. I don't agree with what those attorneys did in the slightest I do believe the penalties and being disbarred are adequate penalties.

While those attorneys violated the code of ethics they did not change the cause of action (the wrongdoing by the defendants). The cases were valid...how Millberg Weiss got the representation was not.

So we have greedy, crooked corporate executives stealing from their shareholders and greedy lawyers offering to share their winnings (should they win) with plaintiffs.


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## Dolly (Jan 30, 2007)

Greg Bimson said:


> I believe the entity's legal name is "Sirius Satellite Radio", while they are marketing themselves as "Sirius XM Radio".


Oh great I didn't even know the company's legal name  I guess they thought it would help to keep XM in the marketing name so the people at XM as well as XM subs would think they had some representation in the company. What you are telling me is I just got a lifetime sub for a company whose real name I didn't even know :girlscrea :bang:


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## Dolly (Jan 30, 2007)

The lawsuit has been dismissed for now. http://seekingalpha.com/article/109862-hartleib-vs-sirius-xm-dismissed


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