Following up on my previous post, there were a couple of final twists today as the Seattle Times investigative report on the wreck that was Infospace came to a close. First is the almost unbelievable irony that when Naveen Jain was finally brought to heel for his multitude of questionable actions, the SEC got involved... by filing a friend of the court brief on Jain's behalf! Whoa, it's like The Sixth Sense or some other convoluted film, "I didn't see that one coming."
The final bizarre aspect (of many) to the story is the ongoing success of "bad old Infospace" --- as opposed to the "good new Infospace" run by Jim Voelker --- at keeping their dirty laundry under lock and key. As this article details, the jurist in key cases against Infospace, King County Superior Court Judge Sharon Armstrong, consistently allowed Infospace to keep their documents in the case confidential. At times it seemed that Armstrong had evolved into an advocate for the company, and her logic to protect the company was extremely tortured. For example
Armstrong had ruled that many of the records were protected by attorney-client privilege and should be sealed. But the Washington Supreme Court said the privilege was lost once such documents were filed in court and used by her to make a decision.
Well... Uhh... yeah. I'm not a lawyer, but that's just basic case law, and her decision was overturned by the Washington State Supreme Court 9-0.
There's lots more along these lines, and you really should look at the entire article. I've got a feeling there's still a lot going on here that hasn't seen the light of day.
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