Word: badian
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Three years ago, Badian paid a $1 million fine to settle a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charge that he had manipulated Sedona's shares. Related criminal charges were filed a few months later, but by then Badian had fled. His whereabouts were recently given to U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia in New York City, whose office is handling the criminal case. Garcia's office said only that the case remains open...
...Badian episode might have been forgotten if not for its ties to Refco, which last month admitted to reporting false results after hiding $430 million of uncollectible debt. Refco CEO Phillip Bennett was charged with fraud, and his company sank into bankruptcy protection within days. It turns out, plaintiff lawyers say, that Badian had been making some of his Sedona trades through Refco, which has acknowledged an SEC investigation...
Brokers are required to ask a client the nature of a stock sale. If it's a short sale, the broker must ascertain if the client has been able to borrow the stock. "I have seen evidence that links Badian and/or Refco to more than 50 stocks that were driven into the ground," says Wes Christian, part of a legal team headed by billionaire Texas tobacco litigator John O'Quinn, who is amassing a case against Badian, other hedge funds and now possibly Refco. Refco declined to comment. Badian didn't come to the door when a TIME reporter rang...
Usually the victims of hedge-fund excesses are their rich customers, who lose when the hedge fund makes a bad bet. But through naked short selling, hedge funds can stir up trouble for any publicly traded firm. In the case of Pet Quarters, the suit alleges that Badian's hedge fund lent the firm sorely needed operating capital on terms that allowed the hedge fund to convert the debt to shares at any time. Through naked short selling, Badian then pushed Pet Quarters stock from $4 to just pennies. Badian balanced his massive short selling with cheap shares obtained after...
Papers filed in the Sedona case offer a rare glimpse into the cut-throat nature of naked short selling. Federal prosecutors, in a case that remains open against Thomas Badian but has been dropped against his brother Andreas, charge in the complaint that Andreas ordered brokers to sell Sedona shares short with "unbridled levels of aggression." After the stock had "collapsed," according to the complaint, he congratulated the brokers on a "good job" and instructed them to be "merciless" in selling the stock a day later...