Reuters Ex-Cyberonics CEO loses SunTrust defamation case CYBERONICS/SUNTRUST-DEFAMATION (UPDATE 2):UPDATE 2-Ex-Cyberonics CEO loses SunTrust defamation case * Ex-CEO Cummins said analysts defamed him over options * Judge says analysts' statements were protected By Jonathan Stempel NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Manhattan federal judge on Thursday dismissed a defamation lawsuit by a former Cyberonics Inc ( CYBX - news - people ) chief executive over analysts' comments about a stock option grant he received a day before the medical device maker's shares soared 78 percent. Robert "Skip" Cummins ( CMI - news - people ) had accused SunTrust Banks Inc ( STI - news - people )'s capital markets unit and two analysts, Jonathan Block and Amit Hazan, of defaming him by likening a June 15, 2004 grant of 150,000 stock options to illegal backdating. "The core facts about the June 15 options were indisputably true and the authors' conclusions were protected statements of opinion based on disclosed facts," U.S. District Judge John Koeltl wrote in an 81-page opinion. The grant was awarded the same day a U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory panel urged approval of Houston-based Cyberonics' implantable device to treat depression. Cyberonics shares rose $15.23 to $34.81 the next day. Cummins and Cyberonics' chief financial officer resigned in November 2006 when the company said it would restate six years of results after discovering accounting errors related to option grants. According to the complaint, the alleged improper statements appeared in two June 2006 research reports and in separately published comments. Koeltl reviewed 37 separate alleged wrongful statements and concluded that Cummins was not defamed, and that he failed to show the defendants acted negligently. He reached his ruling despite concluding that Cummins needed to show that the defendants acted only negligently rather than with actual malice, a higher standard of proof. "When this lawsuit was originally filed, we said Amit Hazan and Jonathan Block were two of SunTrust's most reliable analysts," said Judson Graves, a partner at Alston & Bird LLP in Atlanta representing the defendants, in an interview. "They have been totally vindicated, as they should have been." Cyberonics and a lawyer for Cummins did not immediately return calls for comment. Graves said Block still works for Atlanta-based SunTrust. Hazan later moved to Oppenheimer & Co. Stock options let holders buy shares in the future at fixed prices. Backdating involves the retroactive grant of options on dates when the stock price was low, which can make the awards more valuable. Concealing the practice can inflate earnings. More than 200 companies have been subjected to internal or regulatory probes of backdating since the practice first became widely understood earlier this decade. The case is Cummins v. SunTrust Capital Markets Inc et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan), No. 07-4633. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel; Editing by Tim Dobbyn) Copyright 2009 Reuters,
Words can not describe SKIP.One of the most disgusting people I have ever known.I tale it back/He is the worst.
Years ago, I was hired by Cyberonics to work in house. My first week on the job was at a meeting in Orlando. It was there that I first met Skip. He was so crazy awful that I quit at the end of my first week. I haven't looked back until now, out of curiousity. It's no surprise to me that he got screwed in the end. He deserved it big time. What an ass!
I agree...the only one who really had a 'finanacial opportunity of a lifetime' was him....and to think the company barely posted a profit while he was there.... all those directors and especially him got a sweet deal...
Skip treats women in his personal life the same way. This man has a very hurtful personality disorder. Stay away. Run as far as you can. His former fiancée (2018) is still recovering. He induced her into all sorts of boundary breaking things both personally and professionally. Stay away from him. He will love bomb you and then destroy your dignity. Run as fast as you can. Thank God he lives in Lost Wages. Don’t waste your precious time on a book full of smoke and mirrors. But then again it could be VERY entertaining as he paints him self who has “mastered” his energies. What a joke. And the Tantra? He has no idea how to “love, nurture and worship” a woman. If you are reading this then it’s a loud message. You deserve better ladies. Be the Queen that you are. He is Soul sucking at best.