David Feldman's book, Reverse Mergers: Taking a Company
Public Without an IPO, now in its third printing, was published in 2006
by Bloomberg Press (available on http://www.amazon.com).
View David Feldman's reverse merger blog at www.reversemergerblog.com.
Joseph Smith and David Feldman are coauthors of PIPES:
Revised and Updated Edition - A Guide to Private Investments in Public Equity
(Bloomberg Press, 2005) available on http://www.amazon.com.
In the News
Eric
Weinstein and his current case involving
author Laura Albert mentioned in a New
York Times article about New York lawsuits
on June 19, 2007.
The
City's New Motto: 'See You in Court'
by
Clyde Haberman
Manufacturing
is all but gone from New York. The information
technology industry, while on a roll,
does not quite have the Silicon Alley
'90s buzz. This city is in danger of
falling behind London as a financial
capital. Thank goodness, we still have
lawsuits. We are unsurpassed when it
comes to them, although even on that
score other cities are trying to steal
our thunder. It is hard to top the administrative
law judge in Washington who is demanding
$54 million from his dry cleaner for
misplacing a pair of his pants. This
guy actually wept in court while telling
of his loss. So sad. Still, for lawsuits,
New York is the place.
We have people of unparalleled dedication,
like a lawyer who said he had worked
30 to 40 hours -- worth nearly $10,000
in billable time -- to fight a $65 parking
ticket. Last week he won. Where else
would you find someone willing to spend
so much on so little, all in the name
of justice? Who else is so blessed as
to have Robert H. Bork -- he who didn't
make it to the Supreme Court, he who
has inveighed against accident victims
for driving up business costs with lawsuits
-- file a slip-and-fall suit of his
own? Mr. Bork wants $1 million from
the Yale Club in Manhattan as compensation
for the "excruciating pain" he endured
after he took a tumble trying to reach
the dais for a speech at the club.
Perhaps Mr. Bork could offer advice
to Mamadou Soumare, the unfortunate
immigrant from Mali whose wife and 4
children were among 10 people who died
in a terrible fire in the Bronx three
months ago. Last week, a New York Post
reporter came across a notice of claim
that Mr. Soumare had filed with the
city comptroller's office. The notice
was a required first step in a possible
$100 million lawsuit -- repeat, $100
million -- against the city. Among those
named by Mr. Soumare was the Fire Department,
which he said had "failed to respond
in a timely manner." Never mind that
firefighters arrived 3 minutes and 23
seconds after 911 was called. Never
mind that the call had come disastrously
late because people in the burning house
had wasted precious time trying to put
out the flames themselves.
The notice of claim does not mean that
Mr. Soumare, who is in this country
illegally, will definitely follow through
with a lawsuit. But it means that he
might. If he does, he will show that
he truly understands American ways.
As does a company called Antidote International
Films, which is suing a writer for fraud
in federal court in Manhattan.
The company paid $45,000 for the rights
to "Sarah," a novel that made a splash
in 2000, in part because it was supposedly
written by one JT LeRoy, said to be
an H.I.V.-positive, teenage male prostitute
out of West Virginia. Only there was
no JT LeRoy. He was the invention of
the actual writer, Laura Albert, 42,
a mother with Brooklyn roots.
Antidote, which was entranced by the
autobiographical back story of the nonexistent
author, was not happy. It was so unhappy
that it had six lawyers -- enough people
to form a hockey team -- in court yesterday
trying to get its money back.
Is Ms. Albert a malevolent fake?
Or is she, as described by her lawyer,
Eric Weinstein, a "complicated person"
who created the JT LeRoy persona because
"this is how she communicated with the
world."
In case anyone may have forgotten, we
are talking about a novel, by definition
a work of fiction. What difference,
some might ask, does it make if it was
written by a young male hustler or a
middle-aged mom?
It's not as if Ms. Albert is the first
writer, female or male, to create a
false identity. Mary Ann Evans wrote
"Silas Marner" as George Eliot. Isak
Dinesen, of "Out of Africa" fame, was
not a man, but a Danish noblewoman,
Karen Blixen. George Sand was the French
Baroness Dudevant, Amandine Aurore Lucie
Dupin.
The list of assumed identities goes
on and on. It includes Joyce Carol Oates,
who 20 years ago wrote a pseudonymous
novel, "Lives of the Twins." She hadn't
intended to play "a trick," Ms. Oates
said at the time. She simply "wanted
to escape from my own identity."
In a 1987 essay, she said that with
a pseudonym "there is the possibility,
however quixotic, of making a fresh
start" and "not being held to severe
account for it."
But then, unlike Ms. Albert, Ms. Oates
didn't get caught up in the thriving
New York world of lawsuits, where it
is all about being held to severe account.
