Ride the Lightning
Cybersecurity and Future of Law Practice Blog
by Sharon D. Nelson Esq., President of Sensei Enterprises, Inc.
Morgan Lewis Releases Unredacted Hot Info on Goldman Sachs
May 21, 2012
Goldman Sachs has got to be furious. It has been reported (with a link to the documents) that after years of fighting to keep certain information secret, the cat has now bolted from its bag.
The e-mails accidentally released by the law firm of Morgan Lewis seem to prove that Goldman Sachs was indeed engaged in the practice of naked short selling as alleged by Overstock.com. If you are as dim about the stock market as I am, naked short selling, in essence, is selling stock you do not have. If you don’t have to actually locate and borrow stock before you short it, you’re creating an artificial supply of stock shares. That definition comes from Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone – you couldn't prove it by me.
The betting money is that this very damaging information was released because the Morgan Lewis partner – or someone working for him – attached the unredacted version of a document to a pleading rather than the redacted one.
Lessons: Name your documents carefully – "redacted" or "unredacted" should be in the name. Before hitting send, look at the attachment's name. If you're really anal, open it up to be sure.
Hat tip to Jennifer Ellis for sending me the story.
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