Who is paying for SCO lawsuit?
 

According to this article the legal firm representing SCO,
Boies, Schiller and Flexner, receive 20% of any money that
SCO receives under these conditions:

'Under an agreement, the law firm would get 20 percent
of proceeds of a settlement, an equity financing or a
sale of the company during the "pendency of litigation,"'

http://money.cnn.com/2003/11/06/tech..._lawyers.reut/

Recently SCO received a $50,000,000 investment from BayStar
Capital:

http://www.forbes.com/markets/newswi...tr1112634.html

Under the terms of the aggreement with Boies, Schiller and Flexner,
the lawyers are entitled to 10 million dollars of that investment.

30 million of the capital investment were provided by the Royal
Bank of Canada, an institution not known for making risky
investments, or perhaps by a client of the Royal Bank
making the investment with Royal Bank as trustee.

http://marketwatch-cnet.com.com/2110...3-5093997.html

So this brings up the interesting question:

Who is paying for the SCO lawsuit?


------------------
Steve Stites

i've heard it traces back to M$

as of a few weeks ago, on the Linux Show they reported that SCO didn't have an income above and beyond the M$ payments
m$ can't be seen to directly finance the lawsuit against Linux
but "we/linux" are in their sights

doesn't help when redhat go and say that home users should use XP

<edit>
eek! thta's a bit disjointed

late at night
been banging my head against a wall all evening trying
to find terratec drivers for a friends winbox

apologies

AFAIK M$ bought a licence from SCO ... probably to support them for their fight against Linux which is still unbeatable by Windows 2003, etc

there are times when the difference between the US military and M$ is hard to see

(gonna upset a few americans with that one)
must be the national mindset

scariest people in history

i have a theory, they will continue to sue ligit businesses until they get a win.

This is because a win is needed to pay off all the legal debts that they proablly now have.

god there stupid.

"This is because a win is needed to pay off all the legal debts that they proablly now have."

SCO already has had to resort to paying their lawyers with SCO stock which is nominally valued at above market price.

http://www.crn.com/sections/Breaking...rticleID=46124

It is interesting that the high priced lawyers whom SCO paid one million dollars in cash and
a nominal nine million dollars in overvalued SCO stock did not bother to represent SCO in
a highly crucial motion hearing, which SCO lost badly..

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1405711,00.asp

I don't think that SCO has the money to sue anybody else. Probably they can only finance new lawsuits if some outside party is willing to foot the bill. It is also possible that they are running out of money for the IBM lawsuit and have switched to economy lawyers.

But all of this does bring up an interesting question:
If SCO received 50 million dollars from the private stock placement and gave their lawyers one million, where did the other 49 million dollars go?

___________________________________
Be prepared. Create a LifeBoat CD.
http://users.rcn.com/srstites/LifeBo...home.page.html

Steve Stites

They still need to keep the company up and going... they actually have employees working there. SCO does more than just sue people... ;) I have a neighbor that works at SCO.

SCO recently received a fifty million dollar capital infusion from Baystar and Royal Bank of Canada. It is possible that Baystar and Royal Bank are trustees for an unnamed investor.

Now there is news that Baystar and Royal Bank have veto rights over any future SCO litigation.

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/?http://www.p...y.php?id=51219

From this I surmise that whoever invested in SCO through Baystar and Royal Bank of Canada has the power of the purse over SCO litigation. They will pay for future SCO litigation but only if it meets their approval.

I am going to file a complaint with the SEC that these dealings are insider deals that defraud the general investing public.

___________________________________
Be prepared. Create a LifeBoat CD.
http://users.rcn.com/srstites/LifeBo...home.page.html

Steve Stites

i bet you any money, that microsoft has something to do with the whole lets kill the linux world philosophy. Theres no way that sco were going to recover after the drunken lets sue the largest it industry in the world moment (ibm), so they thaught it would fun to continue and see how a company could loose in money by sucessive lawsuits.

because they are finished for sure, microsoft invested loadsa money to help kill linux

bastards.

The Globe and Mail is Canada's national newspaper. Among other things, the
Globe and Mail acts as the Canadian Wall Street Journal. The following article
in the Toronto Globe and Mail sheds some light on who invested money in SCO:

http://www.globetechnology.com/servl...ry/Technology/

The article contains the following statement:

'An RBC spokesman was reluctant to comment, saying the SEC filing was about how
SCO operates its business. He said that RBC's "investment in SCO is passive,
made to hedge an economic exposure resulting from client transactions." '

This heavily implies that the SCO investment was not the Royal Bank's idea but
was made on behalf of one of the Royal Bank's clients.

Who is that client?

___________________________________
Be prepared. Create a LifeBoat CD.
http://users.rcn.com/srstites/LifeBo...home.page.html

Steve Stites

I read an interesting perspective on /. (that doesn't happen too often) whic said that RBC was probably just hedging their bets. Perhaps they have significant investments in companies like IBM or RedHat or Fortune 500 end-users who depend on Linux. If (very big if) SCO somehow manages to succeed in its litigation or invoicing scam, the companies could take a financial hit which will hurt investors. RBC may just be putting up small money at long odds to cover the potential loss. This way, no matter what the outcome they still manage to break even.

Interesting bit a trivia - David Boies was the attorney hired by the Department of Justice during the Clinton administration to help the DoJ litigate the case. Of course, that was before the DoJ changed their policy and let MS off easy. I doubt that MS is behind the litigation because the Boies firm could not take a case paid for by MS because he formerly prosecuted them. It would create all sorts of problems for them.

Is the Royal Bank of Canada somehow a contributor?

http://slashdot.org/articles/03/12/1...&tid=98&tid=99

Yes. 30 million somehows IIRC. RBC and Baystar plunked $50 mil on the table, but as mentioned here and elsewhere they're probably covering other parger potential losses.

PROOF!!! ELVIS FUNDING SCO LAWSUIT!!!
 

PROOF!!! ELVIS FUNDING SCO LAWSUIT!!!
Since I am pretty sure that someone said Elvis was seen in Salt Lake City, I have no doubt this is true :)