Biovail: another naked short selling poster child exposed

Posted May 20th 2008 4:28PM by Zac Bissonnette
Filed under: Law, Scandals

With the former CEO of naked short selling conspiracy theory poster child Richard Altomare locked up, the group Gary Weiss calls the baloney brigade is badly in need of a new commander in crap.

Well it looks like they can forget about Biovail Corporation (NASDAQ: BVF). Fortune's Roddy Boyd reports that, a couple months after the company settled an SEC complaint for $10 million, "The big Canadian drug company agreed Friday to plead guilty to U.S. kickback and conspiracy charges ... Biovail and a New Jersey-based subsidiary will pay a $24.6 million fine to avoid a court case that could have cost them future business with federal agencies."

Gradient Analytics -- which had published negative research about Biovail and head cry baby Overstock.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: OSTK) and was subsequently sued by both companies -- appears to have been right on the money in its criticisms of Biovail.

Moral of story: when a company starts suing people and lashing out at its critics, sell the stock. That philosophy would have saved people a ton of money on Biovail.

Tags: Biovail, BVF, Naked Short, NakedShort, Short