Quote:
Originally Posted by Lester
the more i think about it, with the damages being so high i think this is end game.
this is it.
if GWI doesn't back off, and this goes to court.. the bonds WONT sell, and the NHL wont allow the sale to go thru. lawsuits take years/months. the league will move the coyotes to winnipeg by months end or maybe even weeks end.
if GWI backs off, it allows the sale to go thru.
maybe trout can comment but this seems like the last card in the deck for glendale... this move either works for them or they try and recoup team losses thru GWI.
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Just a guess, but the basis of the suit would probably the "tortious interference" complaint Glendale was thought to be contemplating against Jim Balsillie . . . . . but likely now directed at Goldwater and specific individuals within that group.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortious_interference
I would say Goldwater and its principals, who like to boast they've been sued before, had better be right about the alleged illegality of this deal and need to hope they were careful in what they've said privately and publicly about this.
It's probable this deal would have closed at an interest rate of 5% or 6% without Goldwater's interference . . . but if the deal is now commanding a risk premium over those rates - rumoured to be 8% to 9% now, essentially making the economics somewhat untenable (although less than $3 million per year over 30 years) - simply because of the moral suasion brought forward by Goldwater . . . . . well, it does look like they may have interfered.
But were they on the right side of the line?
Mayor Scruggs of Glendale a few days ago accused Goldwater of "significantly hindering" the sale of the bonds.
That's probably why Goldwater and its principals have apparently been careful not to publicly say they will or will not sue. But we can't know what they said to potential buyers of the bonds when they contacted them directly, which I seem to remember happening.
Saying something is a crappy investment is different than telling a potential buyer you'll sue if they buy the issue.
As before, tortious interference will be laughed at by the Calgarypuck legal team as a rarely enforced occurrence.
Still . . . . . we are sitting in the peanut gallery and can contemplate stuff as we wish.
I will put my Monopoly Money on this particular play and, to be perfectly honest, I hope this whole thing never goes away. It's endlessly entertaining.
Cowperson