Janet and Jim Baker are fighting Goldman Sachs over its work in 2000 - or lack thereof - on the all-stock sale of their business, Dragon Systems, to a company that later collapsed, leaving them shut out.
NYT:
THE business deal from hell began to crumble even before the Champagne corks were popped.
The deal, the $580 million sale of a highflying technology company, Dragon Systems, had just been approved by its board and congratulations were being exchanged. But even then, at that moment of celebration, there was a sense that something was amiss.
The chief executive of Dragon had received a congratulatory bottle from the investment bankers representing the acquiring company, a Belgian competitor called Lernout & Hauspie. But he hadn’t heard from Dragon’s own bankers at Goldman Sachs.
“I still have not received anything from Goldman,” the executive wrote in an e-mail to the other bank. “Do they know something I should know?”
The Bakers paid Goldman Sacs $5 million to guide them through what should have been a fairly simple transaction, only to have their contract with them end up being worth even less than the now worthless $580 million in stock they received for a business that was their life's work. Now after more than a decade of fighting in court, Goldman is so far getting away with saying that they gave the Bakers “great advice” and "guided them to a completed transaction.”
Perhaps now that this story has been made public, even some of the wealthy people in America can understand what millions of "everyday" Americans have been going through while having their lives destroyed through mortgage fraud. Not that any Republican pols will give a rip, mind you...
