Dev ii16 Apr 2019 11:48
Been away for a long weekend - just back. Have tried to catch up but frankly too much to read it all (both main boards). Lots of good comment - positive and negative - so I’ll stick to my main thoughts.
The chambers meeting on 15th April felt to me like a procedural follow up after possibly the Judge taking holidays. Who knows!
The timing of the Californian action - just 24 hours before - can be read in so many ways. But it is certainly highly aggressive. Agree that an OOCS seems unlikely at this point.
Really odd in my view that a poster called DOddsy first raised this on Monday morning on LSE. No comment, and as far as I can make out not a previous FRR poster - in fact barely a poster at all. So probably not a shareholder - more likely someone connected to the company wanting indirectly to let shareholders know what was going on.
The lawyer they have chosen is clearly no muppet - see https://www.taylorenglish.com/people-william-declercq.html
And see this comment: “He has been identified as a “Super Lawyer” and “Rising Star,” an honor conferred on less than 3 percent of practicing attorneys in California”. So FRR yet again go for very expensive litigators
The submission is interesting in a number of regards - and as said is highly aggressive (fraudulent actions, misrepresentation, conspiracy etc etc)
It also cites the blocking of fund raising attempts a year or so back. We know about them. It does however not cite the Durham financing efforts - or indeed any fund raising activity in the last 9 months or so.
It also effectively states a conspiracy to get the company de-listed. Conspiracies involve other parties - so what has the discovery turned up? I have no doubt that the Nomad resignation caused the de-list - the argument will be that the events we know about - and those we don’t - let to the creation of the circumstances that caused the de-list.
As said so many times this will take as long as it takes - but you could interpret that FRR now have a way forward on the longer term financing, but are not prepared to succour Hope - and are religiously going for the jugular regarding the retrospective behaviour of Hope and his Outrider crew. (I remember talking to Zaza a number of times regarding his utter detestation of those who try to make money by manipulation, and opportunely leveraging the work of others)