Gurary v. Winehouse

190 F.3d 37, 1999 WL 642199
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Second Circuit
DecidedAugust 24, 1999
DocketNos. 98-7239(L), 98-7280(XAP)
StatusPublished
Cited by210 cases

This text of 190 F.3d 37 (Gurary v. Winehouse) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Gurary v. Winehouse, 190 F.3d 37, 1999 WL 642199 (2d Cir. 1999).

Opinion

KAPLAN, District Judge.

Plaintiff appeals from a judgment of the district court (Stanton, J.) to the extent that it dismissed the plaintiffs claims under Section 10(b) of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934 (the “Exchange Act”), 15 U.S.C. § 78j, and Rule 10b-5 thereunder on the merits and his pendent state claims for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. One of the defendants cross-appeals from so much of the judgment as denied so much of its motion as sought sanctions under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (the “PSLRA”). We affirm so much of the judgment as dismissed plaintiffs case. We vacate and remand insofar as it denied the application for sanctions.

[40]*40I

Nu-Tech Bio-Med,. Inc.(“Nu-Teeh”) was formed in 1981. Its common stock, which is the security that allegedly was manipulated, is traded on NASDAQ.

The Nvr-Tech Convertible Preferred

In late 1996,1 at a time when Nu-Tech common stock was trading at about $15 per share, Nu-Tech raised $14 million by issuing 14,000 shares of Series A Convertible Preferred Stock in a private placement at a price of $1,000 per share. This security had no voting rights and paid no dividends but was convertible into common at the lesser of (1) $17.50 per share, and (2) 75 percent of the average closing bid price of the common for the five trading days prior to the date of the holder’s notice of conversion, with one-third of the holder’s shares being convertible on each of the forty-fifth, the seventy-fifth, and the one hundred-fifth day after issuance. Nu-Tech was obliged to register the common stock into which the preferred was convertible. These characteristics had several notable implications'.

First, the facts that the preferred (a) paid no dividends, (b)had no voting rights, and (c) was convertible to common at a bargain price, and that (d) the conversion right expired following the one hundred fifth day following issuance meant that the preferred almost inevitably would be converted.2

Second, purchasers of the preferred were likely to profit no matter what happened to the price of the common stock, provided only that the company survived. If the common traded below $23.33 per share immediately prior to conversion, the preferred would be converted at 75 percent of the price of the common (which would be less than $17.50). As long as the price of the common did not fall more than 25 percent following the conversion, the preferred shareholder would profit by conversion and sale of the common into which the preferred was converted.3 If the common traded above $23.33 immediately pri- or to conversion, the preferred would be converted at $17.50 (which would be less than 75 percent of the trading price of the common), thus virtually assuring an even greater profit.

Third, even if the preferred were to be converted into the minimum number of common shares,4 the preexisting common stock holders would be diluted very substantially. At the minimum conversion ratio of 57.14 shares of common per share of preferred, conversion of the entire issue of preferred would result in the issuance of 799,970 additional shares of common, whereas Nu-Tech had only about 2.4 million shares outstanding at the time of the private placement. Conversion at higher ratios (ie., when the price of the common was below $23.33 per share) would increase the number of shares issued and therefore the dilution. Indeed, a sufficiently substantial drop in the price of the common could increase the conversion ratio so much that conversion would result in the former preferred shareholders owning a majority of the company’s post-conversion common stock. Thus, the existence of the convertible preferred, in and of itself, doubtless exerted downward pressure on the price of the common.

[41]*41 Winehouse’s Alleged Scheme

The complaint alleges that defendant Isaac Winehouse, doing business as Wall & Broad Equities, organized a “cartel” to purchase a percentage of the Nu-Tech convertible preferred in the names of nominees. He then allegedly arranged for a number of securities firms to become market makers in Nu-Tech common stock and proceeded to sell the common short, allegedly to drive the price of the common stock down.

The Dealings Among Nu-Tech, Wine-house and Plaintiff

Plaintiff Mordechai Gurary purchased 1,000 shares of Nu-Tech common on October 31, 1996 and another 5,500 shares on November 7, 1996 at $14.60 and $15.50 per share, respectively. In or about December 1996, the stock price began to decline. A concerned Gurary spoke to J. Marvin Feigenbaum, chairman of Nu-Tech. Feig-enbaum told him that he had spoken to Winehouse and threatened that Nu-Tech would refuse to register the common stock into which the preferred was convertible unless Winehouse and his group stopped shorting the common. He predicted that this threat would convince Winehouse to stop shorting the stock because a refusal to register the common issued upon conversion would force Winehouse to cover his short position by purchasing Nu-Tech common in the open market, perhaps at higher prices. Gurary, evidently comforted, then purchased another 1,000 shares on December 24, 1996 at a price of $11.75 per share.

Gurary claims subsequently to have learned that Winehouse and his associates had continued to short the stock using nominee names, having arranged to “borrow” an unlimited number of shares for that purpose from market makers. On February 18, 1997, Gurary again spoke to Feigenbaum, who told him that he had met that day with Winehouse and others in another attempt to stop the short selling. Feigenbaum told Gurary that Nu-Tech had offered to repurchase the group’s preferred shares at cost plus ten percent and to allow it to keep its existing profits from the short sales if the group would stop its activities but that Winehouse had refused. Feigenbaum, however, told Gurary that Nu-Tech would not give in to Winehouse and would refuse to register the short sellers’ shares. Later that day, Gurary bought another 8,350 shares of Nu-Tech common at a price of $11.57.

On March 12, 1997, Feigenbaum and another Nu-Tech board member met again with Winehouse and asked that Winehouse and his group accept registration of the common stock into which their preferred was convertible over a period of twelve months rather than insisting that it be registered immediately. Winehouse again refused and said that he would continue to sell short.

Nu-Tech common stock dropped approximately $6 per share over the next two days. On March 14, 1997, the company issued a press release which stated that the price decline could be attributed to “possible sales by shareholders.” No mention was made of the discussions between Nu-Tech and Winehouse, allegedly to avoid disrupting Nu-Tech’s efforts to acquire Physicians Clinical Laboratory, Inc. (“PCL”) out of bankruptcy.

A few days later, Gurary was approached through an intermediary and spoke with Winehouse, who allegedly admitted to him that he deliberately had shorted the stock to drive the price down, said that he intended to continue, and advised Gurary to sell his shares because the price would drop to “a dollar.”

Proceedings Below

Plaintiff commenced this action against Nu-Tech and Winehouse on May 23, 1997.

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Bluebook (online)
190 F.3d 37, 1999 WL 642199, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/gurary-v-winehouse-ca2-1999.