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Grove Farm win challenged in appellate court
by Amanda C. Gregg - THE GARDEN ISLAND
A decision to withhold a previous ruling from jurors regarding the 2000 sale of Grove Farm is being reviewed this week in the Hawai‘i Intermediate Court of Appeals.
The appeal, filed on behalf of former Grove Farm shareholder Keith Tsukamoto, asks the higher court to review whether more evidence should have been presented to jurors who in 2006 acquitted the previous Grove Farm board of wrongdoing when it sold the company.
The former board had sold the company to AOL co-founder Steve Case in 2000 for $26 million. The former sugar plantation’s 22,000 acres were then sold to ALPS investment, an entity Case owns.
Fifth Circuit Judge Kathleen Watanabe had decided to keep her July 2006 ruling — that the former Grove Farm board did not show “due care” when it sold the company — from being disclosed to jurors in the October 2006 trial.
Instead, jurors tasked with determining whether board members did everything they could to get the best price for Grove Farm when they sold it were required to base their decision on other factors.
Based on evidence permitted at trial, jurors on Nov. 22, 2006, found that the former board of directors hadn’t been motivated by personal gain and that they operated in the best interests of the corporation.
Several other suits filed against Grove Farm remain pending, including one in which former shareholder Guy Combs accuses the former board of directors of insider trading.
The Combs case is not yet on calendar to be heard in Kaua‘i court as much of the year is slated for civil cases stemming from the March 14, 2006, Ka Loko Reservoir Dam breach, in which seven people died.
The federal case in which Case is implicated for insider trading will focus on whether there was a conflict of interest when Case was negotiating the sale. Court documents accuse Case of using information his father, Dan Case, of Case Bigelow & Lombardi, acquired when he was counsel for Grove Farm at the time of the sale.
That case is scheduled to be heard in federal court in Honolulu on April 28.
• Amanda C. Gregg, assistant editor/staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 252) or agregg@kauaipubco.com
The appeal, filed on behalf of former Grove Farm shareholder Keith Tsukamoto, asks the higher court to review whether more evidence should have been presented to jurors who in 2006 acquitted the previous Grove Farm board of wrongdoing when it sold the company.
The former board had sold the company to AOL co-founder Steve Case in 2000 for $26 million. The former sugar plantation’s 22,000 acres were then sold to ALPS investment, an entity Case owns.
Fifth Circuit Judge Kathleen Watanabe had decided to keep her July 2006 ruling — that the former Grove Farm board did not show “due care” when it sold the company — from being disclosed to jurors in the October 2006 trial.
Instead, jurors tasked with determining whether board members did everything they could to get the best price for Grove Farm when they sold it were required to base their decision on other factors.
Based on evidence permitted at trial, jurors on Nov. 22, 2006, found that the former board of directors hadn’t been motivated by personal gain and that they operated in the best interests of the corporation.
Several other suits filed against Grove Farm remain pending, including one in which former shareholder Guy Combs accuses the former board of directors of insider trading.
The Combs case is not yet on calendar to be heard in Kaua‘i court as much of the year is slated for civil cases stemming from the March 14, 2006, Ka Loko Reservoir Dam breach, in which seven people died.
The federal case in which Case is implicated for insider trading will focus on whether there was a conflict of interest when Case was negotiating the sale. Court documents accuse Case of using information his father, Dan Case, of Case Bigelow & Lombardi, acquired when he was counsel for Grove Farm at the time of the sale.
That case is scheduled to be heard in federal court in Honolulu on April 28.
• Amanda C. Gregg, assistant editor/staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 252) or agregg@kauaipubco.com
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puput wrote on Apr 3, 2009 10:19 AM: