Alito and Vanguard. Very troubling.

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: judasmachine
if i had to determine the well being of a company who has their grubby fingers on my money, then i would either hand off the decision to someone else, or get my money back first. it appears improper, i'm not calling for him to be burned at the stake, i'm just saying it looks bad, and in the court of public opinion that is all that matters.

Well being? This case was whether or not the litigant can claim her late husbands assets back that were frozen due to an allegation of fraud.

You have to be a partisan hack to think there is anything in improper about his presiding over this. He had no financial gain or loss to worry about with regards to this case.

And his quote about Vanguard like most things is taken out of context. I am sure it was revolving around a financial claim against the company which at that point I agree, he should recuse himself.

 

[ShadesOfGrey]

Originally posted by: Genx87
I fail to see how he had a conflict of interest in this case. He had no financial interest in the case. The case is about freeezing assets due to a fraud allegation by Vanguard. All he was doing was looking at the validity of Vanguards claim for freezing the assets. If he voted yay or nay it would have zero affect on his own assets.

I am too lazy to go back and read the article, but didnt Vanguard freeze the assets based on a court order?

Yes, exactly.

 

[zendari]

Didn't stop Breyer from ruling on his investments with Lloyds of London.

Text

From 1978 to 1988, Breyer made a number of investments with a syndicate of Lloyds of London, the insurance giant that insures many companies against pollution liability. At the same time, environmental lawsuits were costing Lloyd's billions of dollars in losses and bankrupting investors. Starting in 1980, a number of US courts dramatically increased the claims against many Lloyd's syndicates, particularly asbestos-related claims and Superfund claims. These court decisions resulted in a shift of the burden of proof in an injury suit to the defendant. The US Superfund law was, in the minds of targeted firms, causing enormous damage awards against companies that were insured by these syndicates. Under British law, an investor is responsible for paying his share of losses. Even if that investor sells his shares, he remains liable for damages from when he was a member. Even after Breyer dies, claims can be made against his estate for eternity.

Judges have the power to shape and change American tort law, and therefore Breyer, faced with a potential loss of over $1 million, has a personal interest in any case that comes before him that deals with environmental and personal injury tort claims. By law, judges are supposed to recuse themselves from cases in which they have a personal interest. Breyer failed to recuse himself in eight Superfund cases during the mid-1980s. During his Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Breyer claimed he wasn?t knowledgeable about what type of investments Lloyds was involved in, and therefore felt no need to recuse himself. The majority of the Senate bought into his dubious defense.

 

[BaliBabyDoc]

Originally posted by: Genx87
I fail to see how he had a conflict of interest in this case. He had no financial interest in the case. The case is about freeezing assets due to a fraud allegation and Vanguard froze the assets for future litigation. All he was doing was looking at the validity of Vanguards claim for freezing the assets. If he voted yay or nay it would have zero affect on his own assets.

I am too lazy to go back and read the article, but didnt Vanguard freeze the assets based on a court order?

I think the most notable Vanguard case involved a minor amount of money so the conflict was essentially a nonissue. But it still stands that Alito probably has a "clue" that he has substantial holdings in Vanguard, which means the "potential appearance" of COI might be an issue. Further, his blanket statement at his confirmation can (and should) be the standard . . . since he's the one that set the standard.

The issue of him presiding over cases involving his sister's law firm is a different animal.

 

[Thump553]

Originally posted by: Helenihi

Originally posted by: judasmachine
apparently there is a conflict here. why else would he promise to recuse himself? he knows it looks bad, now we know it looks bad, regardless of any laws being broken.

There isn't a conflict. What don't you get? There is no conflict. There has to be a possibility that the judge's financial interest will be affected by the litigation. There isn't any. It is absolutely impossible that his funds would be affected by this case so there is no conflict of interest.


The promise he made was very broad, and he obviously was not thinking of this exact scenario and more likely just thinking about scenarios where he might have had some conflict. It was 10 years ago during a long hearing, I really doubt he remember the exact wording of everything he said.


This is a really lame thing to try and scuttle his nomination on. You'll never find any expert on ethics and conflicts of interest who will agree this was bad.

Helenihi, with all due respect, you are misstating the facts here in an attempt to explain this away. Alito's promises to recluse himself specifically related to Vanguard and Smith Barney and were written (part of his responses to the Judicial Committee's questionaire, NOT part of oral testimony.

As far as your assertion that "you will never find any expert on ethics and conflicts of interest who will agree this was bad" listen to the NPR article I linked. Not all agree that it was a reclusible situation. I think at least some of those experts that didn't find a conflict conveniently ignored the judge's prior promises to do so. I disagree with that-a good measure of a person's character is whether they honor there agreements and stand behind their words, even if not legally compelled to do so.

 

[azazyel]

Originally posted by: Pabster

I've found that I can see through the liberal media just fine without one :laugh: :laugh:

Yet when it comes to the GOP shoveling BS down your throat you smile and say it tastes like Chocolate Cake.

As for the OP, nothing to see here. Vanguard has some of the best returns for an investment firm which a ton of people and companies use. If this was a privately traded company and he was a major shareholder that would raise a red flag.

 

[techs]

Originally posted by: Helenihi
There is absolutely no conflict of interest here. None whatsoever. It is not the appearance of improprierty, it has to be a reasonable inference, and no lawyer would really assume there was any impropriety (notice that her lawyer only made the motion for a new hearing AFTER he lost, its a tactical move for another try, not any real belief that his case was unfairly prejudiced) in this situation.

The plaintiff had no idea Alito was an investor in Vanguard until after the trial(read the article)
And "reasonable inference" is phe large number of reasonable people who think it is a conflict of interest and ALITO'S own promise to recuse himself.

 

[Helenihi]

Originally posted by: Thump553

Originally posted by: Helenihi

Originally posted by: judasmachine
apparently there is a conflict here. why else would he promise to recuse himself? he knows it looks bad, now we know it looks bad, regardless of any laws being broken.

There isn't a conflict. What don't you get? There is no conflict. There has to be a possibility that the judge's financial interest will be affected by the litigation. There isn't any. It is absolutely impossible that his funds would be affected by this case so there is no conflict of interest.


The promise he made was very broad, and he obviously was not thinking of this exact scenario and more likely just thinking about scenarios where he might have had some conflict. It was 10 years ago during a long hearing, I really doubt he remember the exact wording of everything he said.


This is a really lame thing to try and scuttle his nomination on. You'll never find any expert on ethics and conflicts of interest who will agree this was bad.

Helenihi, with all due respect, you are misstating the facts here in an attempt to explain this away. Alito's promises to recluse himself specifically related to Vanguard and Smith Barney and were written (part of his responses to the Judicial Committee's questionaire, NOT part of oral testimony.

As far as your assertion that "you will never find any expert on ethics and conflicts of interest who will agree this was bad" listen to the NPR article I linked. Not all agree that it was a reclusible situation. I think at least some of those experts that didn't find a conflict conveniently ignored the judge's prior promises to do so. I disagree with that-a good measure of a person's character is whether they honor there agreements and stand behind their words, even if not legally compelled to do so.

First, a promise does not create a conflict of interest. It just doesn't. Talking about breaking his promise is a different issue, but not an issue of a conflict of interest.

His promise related specifically to Vanguard, but not to this specific situation, its likely he was simply thinking of situations where he had an actual conflict of interest. Written or oral, it was still 10 years ago and part of very large question and answer session. The chances of him remembering the exact text of anything he said or wrote is extremely small.


And I'm at work so I can't listen to audio. Is this the old NPR one where two of the three experts (none of whom is as big in the field as Rotunda or Hazzard) agreed that it really was no big deal?

 

[Helenihi]

Originally posted by: techs

Originally posted by: Helenihi
There is absolutely no conflict of interest here. None whatsoever. It is not the appearance of improprierty, it has to be a reasonable inference, and no lawyer would really assume there was any impropriety (notice that her lawyer only made the motion for a new hearing AFTER he lost, its a tactical move for another try, not any real belief that his case was unfairly prejudiced) in this situation.

The plaintiff had no idea Alito was an investor in Vanguard until after the trial(read the article)
And "reasonable inference" is phe large number of reasonable people who think it is a conflict of interest and ALITO'S own promise to recuse himself.

Right, had no idea. And just happened to request that information after he lost, even though he had no desire to request it before he lost. It apparently never occured to him that this was a possibility, and was then the first thing he thought of after the case was over.

And no, reasonable does not mean what a bunch of idiots on the internet who don't know anything about the law think.