[U: Friday — 5 More Sealed Docs.] Ms. Holmes Is REQUIRED To Appear In Person, In Court Next Week — I’ll Dial In, And Live-blog It…

Updated, as of Friday morning: Ms. Holmes has now filed a total of 20 sealed documents. Likely these most recent five will also be discussed next week during the three days of motions to exclude (and include) evidence hearings. End update.

A bit of a tangent, but it would seem that the able USDC Judge Davila is preparing in earnest to be ready for Ms. Holmes’ coming felony trial date.

These hearings could go on, for all three days, as listed below next week. I wonder if she will need to take periodic breaks, due to the advance of her pregnancy. We shall see.

So, anyway… buckle-up, buttercup!

…Full docket text for document 773:
CLERK’S NOTICE SETTING IN-PERSON MOTIONS HEARING. An In-Courtroom Motions (Motions in Limine) Hearing as to Elizabeth A. Holmes is set for 5/4/2021 09:30 AM in San Jose, Courtroom 4, 5th Floor before Judge Edward J. Davila.

Additional Motions Hearing set for 5/5/2021 09:00 AM and 5/6/2021 01:30 PM in San Jose, Courtroom 4, 5th Floor before Judge Edward J. Davila.

DEFENDANT AND COUNSEL FOR DEFENDANT SHALL APPEAR IN PERSON.

All persons attending the hearing must take the [COVID-19] pre-screening questionnaire….

I will post the tele-conference dial-in links, in the comments to this post, if anyone else wants to listen in. Just be sure to start with your line muted, and don’t use a headset — use a landline, if possible.

Onward, grinning — it could all be quite… entertaining.

[And I think she is now over seven months pregnant, so she has good reason to be concerned about COVID-19, as I doubt she’s been vaccinated yet. The vaccines were not yet approved/available for her age cohort… before she was pregnant, and they weren’t approved for pregnant women until just very recently. Interesting.]

Elizabeth Holmes’ Team Filed 15 Sealed Documents — At Least Some Of Them Likely Relate To Her “Mental Disease” / Health Defense…

Overnight, her defense team placed 15 documents under seal on the Northern District’s court docket, in California’s federal courts. We cannot be sure what they contain, so this all is conjecture, to be clear.

And if this does NOT go to trial, they may never see the light of day. But at trial, it is expected she will argue that she suffers from a mental disease or condition, of some sort, which compels her to seek the approval of mostly older men — and to pathologically distort reality, to be far more rosy than the facts suggest — all to improve her own personal sense of… low self-esteem.

Some of these 15 documents may also relate to more mundane health issues, and her pregnancy’s progress. But again, for now, all of it is sealed — she is entitled to keep her actual health condition / diagnoses private, until put in issue at trial.

She has however publicly disclosed the intent to rely on a mental condition defense, in part — and has disclosed her pregnancy — so we may very safely report upon those matters… as we previously have.

If this ever does go to trial, it will be every bit as… fascinating as Martin’s was.

Onward, grinning… on a much cooler, grayer... Spring morning here.

नमस्ते

Excellent Find! By A Commenter Currently — And Timely — Called “Oscar” [Heh!]

I speculated a bit, in the comments earlier this morning, about why this might be happening — and happening, now.

But over my coffee, and banana — on sober reflection — it seems pretty clear.

I’ll spare you all the M&A arcania… the upshot is that Phoenixus AG gets control of a US public company parent that owns a NYC private R&D company… in the pharmaceuticals space. Specifically, a company focusing on neglected diseases… and orphan drugs for them.

Sound familiar? It should — that was the gambit in late 2015, when Martin got his hands on the public company then called KaloBios. He was purportedly going to put the neglected disease / hopefully orphan drug / priority review voucher from his wrangling to get his hands on a Chagas program… into the company then called KaloBios.

But he got perp-walked, first. Game over.

Fast forward over six years, now — and Martin may lose control (as we’ve explained in great detail, as recently as last night) of his stake in Phoenixus AG — unless he acts quickly to provide around $4 million of liquid funds to Dr. Koestler. But selling such a large stake in a private Swiss domiciled company is a very slow process, if one wishes to get full value.

So — per an SEC Form 8-K highlighted by our new best friend / golden statuette, “Oscar”, we learn that Phoenixus, via a complicated set of acquisitions, will end up holding 99% of a public company that controls a neglected diseases pharma subsidiary called SevenScore Pharma.

That ought to allow Phoenixus to transfer either its non-tainted businesses, or the tainted Daraprim one, into the chain, and then use the public NASDAQ markets to sell shares to raise the funds to pay Dr. Koestler his $4 million, and Uncle Sam the remaining unpaid… ~$3 million.

The one thing it cannot do is gut the private entities affiliated with Phoenixus AG (cough! Vyera) of their earning power — those companies “on the hook” for the insurance suit, and the antitrust suit, both in federal court in Manhattan. The FTC/DoJ — and BCBS of Minnesota, and the state AGs would immediately enjoin such a move.

But from here, it looks like Martin may soon again contol a goodly chunk of a public company through this transaction.

Of course, Martin’s sentencing terms explicitly PROHIBIT that — so, I’d expect that Phoenixus AG will pay off all the judgments, in one way or another (likely by buying up almost all of Martin’s remaining shares, EXACTLY as happened in the West Coast federal bankruptcy courts, in the old KaloBios workout), all while NOT allowing Martin to end up with more than 1% of the effective control of this emerging public pharma R&D house. [BTW — the failed public company shell… being employed to do this deal, used to be in the business of holding options on B-list script projects, in Hollywood.]

Thus “Oscar” was wryly prescient, in choosing his handle. Flawless.

Much more to come on this — to be certain.

Onward, on a sunny Spring Sunday — grinning.

[U] Tangent: Bernie Madoff Has Died In Federal Prison. And Coinbase… [Irony Alert!] Cannot Get Its Stock Opened, On The NASDAQ, This Morning.

Update: Coinbase finally opens, after 1 PM EDT, on the NASDAQ at $381/share. Hilarious. End update.

This is from another of my properties, but seems germane here — this morning. You’ll need to read the other property, to understand the backdrop for the Coinbase direct list NASDAQ attempt this morning. But Bernie’s story was repeatedly discussed in 2018, here. We wish his remaining family… peace. Most of them are gone now as well, though — in truth.

Here’s the story of Coinbase, then — it is all very much as irony might have it here:

The avarice of the executives and founding owners of Coinbase… has hamstrung them, rather directly.

At least thus far, this morning. You see, the NASDAQ market list group, in consultation with Goldman Sachs (heh!), has indicated an opening price of $250 per share, less than half of what the executives had hoped for — and about 40 per cent under the last few privately-placed transactions in the Coinbase equity.

So, one of the founders told a news outlet this “you won’t get MY shares, for $250 — think again!“

We are now to believe that he is being put upon, in becoming a liquid multi-billionaire?

Precious.

But this is exactly why an underwritten IPO serves a social utility. All this dirty linen would have been pre-washed, in private.

Now, the world sees that the stock is NOT opening, because the gap between willing buyers’-, and willing sellers’- expected prices… is more than fifty per cent.

And the already public company / “crypto-adjacent” issuers, Riot and Marathon — are falling like rocks, as there is now a non-trivial possibility this stock… never opens at a price the founders and executives are willing to accept. That would say that real buyers… don’t believe these hyped up sellers. That sober money wants… math backed valuations — not rainbows and unicorns.

Wouldn’t a failed direct list be… just the perfect epitaph, when all the history is written?

And, again as irony would have it — on the same morning that Bernie Madoff died in federal prison.

O N W A R D… grinning; ever grinning.

O/T: Will Kavanaugh (And The Supremes) Take The “Emergency Petition” — On Tennessee’s 48 Hour Waiting Period Law — For Abortions?

I expect the Supremes will (upon a referral from Justice Kavanaugh) take this one.

I doubt the court will rule immediately on the merits — but simply stay the Sixth Circuit’s injunction, during the balance of the appeals. But we shall see. The petition was filed by Tennessee, overnight — and Kavanaugh is assigned to review matters arising out of the Sixth Circuit — like this one.

We won’t outline the applicable federal law just yet — preferring to wait and see what the Supremes do, in the interim.

But to be certain, we will keep an eye on it.

And (for the moment) we will trust that Chief Justice Roberts, and the full court, when asked — will apply correctly what is about 45 years of binding precedent. Onward, to a warm sunny mountain bike hike. . . .

नमस्ते

[U] O/T: In Which Justice Thomas Beclowns Himself, And His Robes… Yet Again.

UPDATED @ 3 PM EDT: Now, Josh Gerstein, writing at Politico… openly concedes what I suggested below: Clarence Thomas is far more a partisan, and not a jurist here. Yet he uses the Supreme Court’s printing press, from his seat on the highest bench — to pontificate about highly debated, and debatable theories… ones literally no one asked him about in the matter to which he appended his official concurring opinion. [Chief Justice Renquist… is spinning — at 400 RPM, in his grave, right now.] End, update.

Once again, Justice Thomas has beclowned himself — and the otherwise august bench upon which he sits. Today the Supremes unanimously dismissed as moot the case challenging Tangerine’s blocking of certain US Twitter users, from responding to his official pronouncements as POTUS (which also had the effect of preventing certain US citizens from even seeing T’s official statements, made there — astonishing, in a free society).

True, the issue is no longer live, but the strong suggestion at the Second Circuit was that Baby-T cannot have his cake and eat it too.

I seriously doubt there will be any other future POTUS who will use Twitter in the largely churlish way he did: wildly irresponsibly fanning the flames of intersectional hatred. But even so — his minion, Clarence Thomas, decided to publish a political speech — about what he preposterously regards as “censorship” by Twitter and others of “conservative” writers and speakers. In fact, it is hate speech, and racial hate speech, that is most often removed.

But for Thomas, rather than admitting his published concurring opinion has literally nothing, logically, to do with the case in front of him. . . he just goes off on an entirely political tangent. Here’s a link — it is buried at the bottom of a nearly 30 page set of micellaneous orders (on other matters) — I think the court was embarrassed by it, in truth. Here’s the bit:

. . .The Second Circuit feared that then-President Trump cut off speech by using the features that Twitter made available to him. But if the aim is to ensure that speech is not smothered, then the more glaring concern must perforce be the dominant digital platforms themselves. As Twitter made clear, the right to cut off speech lies most powerfully in the hands of private digital platforms. The extent to which that power matters for purposes of the First Amendment and the extent to which that power could lawfully be modified raise interesting and important questions. This petition, unfortunately, affords us no opportunity to confront them. . . .

Thomas has in recent years increasingly gone from at least pretending to follow Scalia’s path, and only decide cases as presented, and only on original language — to being an activist, openly looking for cases as pure political vehicles, to advance his (and his wife’s) agenda, wholly-apart from any actual live legal case or controversy.

It is an illogical non-sequitur that animates his second quoted sentence above, and all that follows after it. It analyzes no case — and simply repeats a far right talking point, that white supremacists among others are the victims of repression of their “views” by companies like Twitter. That a Supreme Court Justice would engage in such dishonest rhetoric, outside of any case or controversy — in an official publication of the highest court — is sad. Unsurprising, perhaps, but sad — for our system of ordered liberty.

नमस्ते