[Infowarrior] - Goldman Sachs Backs Down in Legal Battle With Blogger

[Richard Forno]

July 16, 2009 12:44 PM

Goldman Sachs Backs Down in Legal Battle With Blogger
Posted by Brian Baxter

http://amlawdaily.typepad.com/amlawdaily/2009/07/goldman-backs-down-in-legal-battle-with-blogger.html

Mike Morgan, a Florida-based investment adviser who started the  
controversial blog GoldmanSachs666.com, has prevailed in a case he  
brought against the investment bank in April.

Goldman, which exceeded expectations by reporting $3.4 billion in  
second quarter profits this week, quietly agreed to several  
stipulations last month in order to dismiss the case.

The Am Law Daily previously reported that Goldman had sought to muzzle  
Morgan's Web site and its conspiracy-tinged blog posts via a cease-and- 
desist letter sent by Chadbourne & Parke IP practice cochair John  
Squires in April. (Squires served as Goldman's chief in-house IP  
counsel before leaving for Chadbourne in January.)


Morgan responded by hiring Joseph Beckman from The Intellect Law Group  
in Palm City, Fla., filing a complaint against Goldman in federal  
court in Florida later that month seeking a declaratory judgment that  
he was not infringing on the bank's trademarks.


The suit wasn't Morgan's first court battle with a corporation he was  
crusading against on the Internet, but he appears to have emerged  
victorious in the Goldman matter provided he maintains a prominently  
displayed disclaimer on his Web site disavowing any affiliation with  
the investment bank.


In turn, Goldman agreed to refrain from interfering with Morgan's use  
of GoldmanSachs666.com. Squires and Chadbourne IP litigation counsel  
Peter Bucci represented Goldman in the litigation. Squires declined an  
Am Law Daily request for comment.


But Morgan, who recently told a British newspaper that he'd had a  
heart attack during the spat and was stepping down from the day-to-day  
operations of his site, did take some time to crow. In a blog post  
earlier this month, he wrote that "Lord [sic] Blankfein and his Band  
of Merry Thugs blinked, and we sliced their heads off."


While Morgan's rants might seem off-the-wall, if a recent feature  
story by Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi is any indication, some of  
Morgan's ideas are starting to receive mainstream attention. Taibbi  
compares Goldman to a "vampire squid wrapped around the face of  
humanity" in a scathing indictment of the investment bank that has  
Wall Street buzzing.


A Goldman spokesman told Reuters that "Taibbi's article is a  
compilation of just about every conspiracy theory ever dreamed up  
about Goldman Sachs . . . We reject the assertion that we are  
inflators of bubbles and profiteers in busts, and we are painfully  
conscious of the importance of being a force for good."

Goldman's charitable endeavors aside, the firm's surging profits and  
repayment of government loans have allowed compensation to return to  
2007 levels.