Saturday, April 01, 2006

Biovail - I spy with my little eye

Troubled pharmaceuticals firm Biovail has been conducting a year-long surveillance of two stock analysts it says conspired to torpedo the firm.

After a recent New York Post investigation, Biovail said last month that private investigators had dogged one of the men only once, to verify his address.

But documents obtained by The Post indicate that Biovail used private detectives to shadow these stock analysts even before it filed a lawsuit against one in February.

In the lawsuit, which seeks $4.6 billion in damages from hedge funds and a critical stock analyst, David Maris of Banc of America Securities, Biovail sketched out a shadowy conspiracy of short-sellers and crooked analysts it dubbed "The Enterprise."

Biovail claims "The Enterprise" knocked down its stock price so that short sellers could profit.
According to police reports from Maris' New Jersey hometown and recently filed legal documents, investigators Edward Wong and Andrew McDonald, along with Louis Torrellas, were first spotted by police in April, 2005.

Jerry Treppel, a former Bank of America analyst suing Biovail and its chairman, Eugene Melnyk in a separate action, has claimed that his trash was repeatedly stolen in November and December.

More here.

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