Burford Capital (BUR) have issued a response to the allegations of false accounting from Muddy Waters. It goes into some detail and appears to at least contradict some of the allegations, if not all. It could take some weeks to analyse and verify who is correct but it leaves outstanding the basic issue of whether the accounting treatment of on-going law suits is prudent. My view is not simply because the outcome of any law suit is basically uncertain. Even if the case is won, there is no certainty that the litigants will get paid.
But there is one law suit that looks fairly certain to proceed. US lawyers Rosen Law Firm are already lining up folks to join a class action over the matter against Burford Capital Ltd. See https://www.rosenlegal.com/cases-register-1647.html . More background information is available here: https://tinyurl.com/yxvnc3yj .
Burford are also threatening legal action against Muddy Waters. So it looks like another lawyers’ beanfeast.
As one commentator said, those aiming to profit from shorting a stock tend to throw all kinds of mud at their target in the hope that some of it sticks. The target company is often unable to respond quickly and the issues are often so complex (as in the Burford case), that investors don’t know who to believe. So the damage is done, the share price collapses and the shorter makes an immediate handsome profit. Is this morally sound? I think not.
As I said in a previous blog post, “it is surely wrong for anyone to make such allegations and publicize them with the objective of making money from shorting the stock without first asking the company concerned to verify that what they are alleging is true – at least as far as the facts they report are concerned rather than just their opinions”. Muddy Waters did not apparently do that in this case and most shorters do not.
As someone who writes frequently on companies, it is good journalistic practice to verify with the company what you are about to publish. It is so easy to make simple factual errors or misinterpret the facts. There is nothing wrong per se in shorting as it can help to ensure that stock valuations are fair and reasonable and maintain liquidity. Most shorters do not publicise what they are doing.
Paul Scott of Stockopedia did a good analysis of the allegations and counter allegations at Burford. This is what he also said: “My feeling is that short sellers should be required to submit such a dossier to the target company, and give them say 7-days to respond privately. This would allow companies to point out the mistakes in the draft report. It does appear that the MW report might have misinterpreted some of the cases it comments on. Or at least, Burford seems to have provided reasonable explanations in most cases”. But Paul was also critical of their accounting policies and reliance on a few big cases.
I agree with him that such a regulation would be a good idea. It would stop a lot of wild and inaccurate allegations being published and at least give the target company the opportunity to issue a quick rebuttal if the allegations were still published.
The difficulty might be in framing such a regulation to cover those publishing a critique on a company at the same time as shorting the stock while excluding general market commentary and company analysis. But it would not seem impossible to do so.
Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )
You can “follow” this blog by clicking on the bottom right.
© Copyright. Disclaimer: Read the About page before relying on any information in this post.