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| SCO v. IBM Hearing Date Changed to April 23rd at 2:30 PM Before Judge Benson ~pj |
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Saturday, February 11 2012 @ 03:33 PM EST
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There's been a slight change in the hearing date for the upcoming SCO v IBM hearing regarding SCO's desire to partially reopen the case. The new date is April 23, 2012 at 2:30 Utah time in Room 246. It's set to be heard by Judge Dee Benson, the new judge assigned, who, I gather, was unable to find a way to recuse himself. Kidding. But there were a lot of recusals on this case.
Here's the latest:
02/07/2012 - 1105 - ***AMENDED*** NEW DATE AND TIME NOTICE OF
HEARING ON MOTION re: 1095 MOTION to Reopen Case : Motion
Hearing set for 4/23/2012 02:30 PM in Room 246 before Judge Dee Benson.
(reb) (Entered: 02/07/2012)
So, it's Judge Benson. I surely hope you can go to the hearing, some of you, and send us a report. Old timers here at Groklaw will recall that it was Judge Benson who presided over the
Caldera v. Microsoft litigation. That means that despite many of the sealed documents being destroyed by his court order in 2003, this judge knows the complete story, including the
side trip initiated by Microsoft in the Microsoft v. Novell antitrust litigation. Not that it helped them at all. Microsoft has filed its motion in that case to have the judge toss out Novell's claims as a matter of law, and I'll get that document up for you next. In addition to the
materials I gathered for you about Judge Benson earlier,
here's a bit of info from the Federal Judicial Center website. As you can see, he was "Chief of staff, U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, 1986-1988", a detail I pointed out earlier. Here's a bit more detail, from the US Department of Justice.
Here's a recent, rather snippy article about him in the Salt Lake Tribune:
When attorneys for DeChristopher claimed they had it on good authority that Sen. Orrin Hatch, who was instrumental in getting Benson the judicial appointment, had discussed with Benson the proper sentence DeChristopher should get before the actual sentencing, Hatch and Benson denied they ever had such discussions.
But I wrote a few years ago about how Benson inadvertently embarrassed Hatch when Benson was on a panel at a Utah State Bar convention in Sun Valley, Idaho. Benson remarked that Hatch spoke to him while he was hearing a case in 2004 that challenged the constitutional validity of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and told the judge that he knew that he would “do the right thing.”
Benson told the story on the panel to show his independence, because he ruled in favor of the monument’s legal existence and he was under the impression that Hatch opposed it. I don't understand why Hatch would be discussing any specific case with any judge, and so there was a bit of uproar about that. Since SCO is represented by Hatch's son, I can't help but hope there is no such discussion in this case. Then again, Utah is Utah. Judge Dale Kimball was appointed by Senator Hatch as well, and that worked out just fine. So we'll just have to wait and watch. Here's a rebuttal to the Salt Lake Tribune article, written by an attorney who practices in Utah, Curt Bentley of Bentley Briggs & Lynch, who was appalled at how quickly people assume bias on the part of judges, just because they may rule contrary to one's wishes, and he raises some important points to keep in mind:
In the vast majority of cases, our judges get it right. But if they ever miss one (which, I understand, does have major effects on the person whose rights are negatively affected — and I can’t say whether Judge Benson missed one in the Dahl case) we’re often not willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, but immediately attribute the worst motives to them, accusing them of misconduct, fraud, or even treason. And then we wonder at the fact that neither side in a political debate trusts the judiciary, and we shake our heads in amazement when the Utah legislature denies a qualified, distinguished, near-universally admired judge a place on our appellate courts because they disagreed with one of his rulings.
It’s a good thing that our judges are protected from political retribution for their sentences, because, if they weren’t, retribution would, it seems, be all too quick in coming. Judge Benson is a distinguished judge who has served this state well in multiple capacities. I suspect he would be the first to admit that he’s probably gotten a few decisions wrong in his 21 years. But that doesn’t mean he sentences on race, religion, or political affiliation. And it’s unfortunate that Rolly believes it’s OK to claim that he does. Politics ruins clear thinking, I've noticed over time, so I encourage everyone to wait and see. Remember how we thought, including me, that the new judge assigned to SCO v. Novell, Judge Ted Stewart, might show bias? I was totally, completely wrong about that fear, and so far, I have to say that Utah has been pretty impressive in handling a very difficult saga. Still, that close connection to Senator Hatch... well, I can't get it out of my mind altogether, all things considered. And the fact is, with so many recusals, there's hardly anybody left to call on. It's Judge Benson or Judge Stewart. And in Utah, if you stood in the street in Salt Lake City, and threw some confetti up in the air, at least some of it would land on somebody with a connection to Senator Hatch. He's been their senator a very long time. Judge Benson not only has served in Utah, by the way. He completed a term on the FISA court in May. And he's co-author of a 966-page book for lawyers on the Utah rules of evidence, Mangrum and Benson on Utah Evidence. And Judge Benson has a twin brother,
Dee Benson, who writes a column for the Deseret News, and who mostly seems to write about sports. Keep in mind too, in the end, if the case is reopened, it's really up to the jury. A judge can tilt things, though they are not supposed to, but even if they do, the jury has its own mind and its own authority.
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| Authored by: kawabago on Saturday, February 11 2012 @ 04:28 PM EST |
| Put em all here, eh! [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: kawabago on Saturday, February 11 2012 @ 04:29 PM EST |
| Here please. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: kawabago on Saturday, February 11 2012 @ 04:30 PM EST |
| All off topic stuff here please! [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: kawabago on Saturday, February 11 2012 @ 04:47 PM EST |
| Pandering to the electorate ruins clear thinking. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, February 11 2012 @ 09:23 PM EST |
>
And he's co-author of a 966-page book for lawyers on the Utah rules of evidence,
Mangrum and Benson on Utah Evidence.
<
Now that might make things interesting.
Tufty
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: benw on Sunday, February 12 2012 @ 03:13 AM EST |
TSG's latest MORs were released the other day. They owe over $3 million in
post-petition debts -- not counting the Yarro "loan" of $2 million and
pre-
petition debts of almost $6 million. They have $275,000 in the bank with
their only other "assets" being about $175,000 in prepaid expenses (?)
and a
mysterious sum of about $1 million that seems to be SCO Group owing SCO
Operations owing the subsidiaries and then back again.
So, even the bankrupt dead "TSG" husk of this company is bankrupt
again.
And what's UnXis done for us lately?
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: sproggit on Sunday, February 12 2012 @ 06:42 AM EST |
I went back and looked through the Groklaw history, to try and figure out a
couple of points relating to the sale of the Unix business to Unxis.
I
found this
article, in which PJ provides us with some of the details of the sale. At
the time they were proposed sale terms, so I don't think we can take them as
gospel.
Bottom line is that Unixs - which included our old friend
Stephen Norris -put forward the following winning
bid:-
unXis submitted a bid, which included (i)
$600,000 in cash and (ii) 2-year warrants to purchase 3% of the outstanding
unXis common stock. The unXis bid excluded the net working capital of the
business worth, in OPA's estimate, from $700,000 - $900,000. unXis also
agreed to pay up to $50,000 of cure costs. Furthermore, the unXis bid
included the acquisition of all of the non-Debtor foreign subsidiaries and
provided for the employment of all current employees in the non-Debtor foreign
subsidiaries. The liability of having to wind-down these entities has not been
determined but OPA preliminarily estimates that those costs would easily exceed
$500,000 and possibly exceed $1,000,000 - exclusive of time and expenses
related to professionals. Importantly, prior to the Final Auction Date, unXis
deposited the full amount of the purchase price into escrow with Blank Rome.
So I'm curious.
Even at this late stage in the
bankruptcy - wasn't it like, more than four years ago that TSG filed for Chapter
11? - the company still has "net working capital" of "$700,000 -
$900,000" [oh, and am I the only one who thinks that a pretty huge margin of
error for a bankruptcy trustee charged with filing MoRs to come up with?] left
in the bank?
But here's the point:
The SCO group have
$700-$900k in the bank. Unxis were offering $600,000 for the
intellectual property and $50k of costs. [OPA estimated that they would need
to spend half a million dollars in winding-up costs... but that
still leaves some million or so left in the kitty].
At no point did
Judge Kevin Gross ask how much of the sale proceeds would be paid to
creditors.
At no point did Judge Kevin Gross state the obvious, which
was that if The SCO Group felt that the portion of Unix IP that had found
it's way into the Linux kernel was worth $5 Billion, how did they value the
entire code base at $600,000?
At no point has Judge Kevin Gross
asked Judge Cahn precisely what is going on now that there is nothing left but
possible litigation...
So...
i) Does Judge Cahn believe that
he has to do something to justify remaining debtor-in-possession in order
to be able to suck the corpse dry?
or
ii) Does Judge Cahn
think that if he rattles sabres at IBM, that with the right inducement they can
be convinced to cough up enough cash for Cahn to be able to keep his gravy train
running a little bit longer?
or
iii) Could it possibly be the
case that someone at the back of this - say an original equity shareholder in
The SCO Group, like Ralph Yarro - is still so obsessing on getting their
beellions that they, as majority shareholder in the corpse, are directing Cahn
to do this?
Are there other alternatives?
Is it possible that
this makes sense from the right perspective? Somewhere? And if so, from where?
Final question: though I am not entirely comfortable in asking this,
nor in challenging the integrity of a participant in these proceedings, can it
be said that Judge Gross has fulfilled his obligations here? Where is the
oversight?[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, February 13 2012 @ 09:49 AM EST |
Not this one surely?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judge_Dee
If so, look forward to floggings of the guilty party![ Reply to This | # ]
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