Outlaw tells the story of City money jugglers Forum Global Equity who failed to persuade a court that an unprofitable deal was not contractually binding on them. They had bought the distressed debt notes of Parmalat and agreed to punt them on to bankers Bear Stearns for €3Million.
Which is a pretty big bag of nose candy; and it would certainly finance one of Geeklawyer’s weekend Mead and totty orgies.
The deal was made over the phone and the paperwork was due to be tidied up at some later point. You’ve all seen ‘Wall Street’: overpaid wankers (yea, OK OK that’s a bit rich from a lawyer) in stripy shirts yelling “sell sell!!” and the plebs in settlements tidy it all up later. That’s what happened here.
Then Forum found a better deal elsewhere. What to do about the deal? Well ‘natch Forum decided to walk away whistling, with eyes fixed firmly to the ground.
“Me? no, sorry mate, never seen you before in my life - you must have me confused with another investment fund. Easily done, we all look the same. Bye.”
Shockingly Justice Smith decided that there was a contract and that it had been concluded orally on the phone. One can only imagine that the shabby fellows at Forum went to some state school, or perhaps Harrow, to behave so badly.
And there’s Geeklawyer who’s been telling his punters all these years that if a contract isn’t written in ink on velum parchment sealed with red wax & delivered by hand it isn’t binding.
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