Pharma's Market
SPECIAL REPORT
MOST SHARED
- We're Not Greece: Italian Prime Minister Monti
- Obama Likely to Call for Cutting Top Corporate Tax Rate
- To Play Senate Cybersecurity Bill, Cramer Likes Fortinet Stock
- Greek Cabinet Approves EU, IMF Bailout Bill
- Special Feature: Wall Street History - How Wall Street Got Its Name
- How to Trade the Turmoil in Greece
- Private Homebuilders: Dead Men Walking
- Why Cramer Likes Select Comfort Over Tempur-pedic Stock
- Cramer: 10 Earnings to Watch Next Week
- Lightning Round: Trina Solar, Zoltek, Affymax and More
- In Search of America's ‘Hottest Forecasters’
- Dow vs. S&P 500: Which is a Better Investment?
- Mick Fleetwood on the MP3 ‘Dumbing Down’ of Music
- Avis on the Road to Strong Growth: Analyst
- Private Homebuilders: Dead Men Walking
- LinkedIn’s Growth Is Already Priced In: Analyst
- The Real Reason Behind Bank of America’s Rally
- 5 Hedge Funds’ Top Stocks Soar After 2011 Rout
- This Valentine’s Day Love Is Served on a Silver Platter
- Greek Cabinet Approves EU, IMF Bailout Bill
- We're Not Greece: Italian Prime Minister Monti
- Private Homebuilders in the US: Dead Men Walking
- Dividend Payout Could Hit Record Amount This Year
- With Investors So Bullish, Stock Pullback Must Be Ahead
- Obama Likely to Call for Cutting Top Corporate Tax Rate
- New York Fashion Week Fall 2012
- NetNet: Why Saving Greece Could Destroy the World
- My Funny Valentine: When Love and the Fed Collide
RSS FEED
Biovail's Travails Drag "60 Minutes" Into Controversy
Text Size 
Reporter
 |
CNBC.com |
The CJR piece was written in the wake of the Securities and Exchange Commission charging the company and four current or former execs with "chronic" fraud. Biovail [BVF
Loading...
()
] settled for $10 million bucks. The four men, including the biotech company's founder and former CEO Eugene Melnyk, are fighting it.
"60" had done a story about Biovail's and Mr. Melnyk's allegations that hedge funds conspired with analysts to push down the stock price of Canada's biggest publicly-traded drug company. CJR Managing Editor Dean Starkman claims the TV newsmagazine made the company look like the victim of aggressive short-sellers (investors betting the shares would go lower).
Starkman concludes: "One can only hope "60 Minutes" viewers listened to the shorts and not "60 Minutes". But the ongoing SEC probe of Biovail was always going to be a time bomb under this story. This week, it blew up."
He also quotes from a press release issued the other day by Gradient Analytics, one of the research firms targeted by Biovail, that referred to my interview with the SEC's Mark Schonfeld:
The Scottsdale, Arizona, company noted that the chief of the SEC’s New York office, Mark Schonfeld, credited analysts who raised questions about Biovail.
“Part of the credit does go to people who were asking a lot of questions and were rightfully skeptical when the company was making representations that just didn’t quite make sense,” said Schonfeld in a CNBC interview.
Starkman says that a spokeswoman for Lesley Stahl, who did the piece, said Stahl was too busy to answer CJR's questions. But a spokesman for the show sent him this email:
"Biovail’s settlement of these SEC charges does not change our story, which was about how giant, unregulated hedge funds can leverage their power in the stock market.”
The four Biovail guys are scheduled to appear for an Ontario, Canada securities hearing on April 22nd. But I wonder if I might see them before that at a Brooklyn Federal Courthouse. The Newark Star-Ledger reports the feds are conducting their own criminal investigation.
Questions? Comments?
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes
