Bill Gates Fined $800,000 Over Stock Purchases 449
Bronz writes "CNN Money is reporting that Bill Gates has been fined $800,000 for violating antitrust waiting period for stock purchases. The department alleged that Gates bought more than $50 million worth of stock in ICOS Corp. through his personal investment trust and failed to notify antitrust officials about the purchase, as required." It's also clarified: "The technical incident has nothing to do with the government's massive antitrust battles with Microsoft."
So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
LK
Re:So what? (Score:3, Insightful)
$800k is $800k. Worth only $40 billion at this point it is a larger chunk than when he was valued at twice that much.
Re:So what? (Score:5, Interesting)
Speaking of abusing the system - check my sig.
Re:So what? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:So what? (Score:5, Informative)
How do you know that? Have you ever heard of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation [gatesfoundation.org]?
Not that I like Bill by any stretch. He justifies tyranny in one respect with philanthropy in other areas.
Re:So what? (Score:4, Interesting)
I imagine it goes to supporting the entity that discovered and prosecuted the problem, but I could be wrong. Afterall, taxes on cigarettes are supposed to go for healthcare, right? And taxes on gasoline go to transportation infrastructure, right? Right?
It just gets sucked into the big government void.
Re:So what? (Score:5, Funny)
The center of the board, where it waits until Bill lands on the "Free Parking" space again.
Re:So what? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:So what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh please. Only in America is it ok to destroy company after company (and therefore thousands of working people) causing havoc in an entire industry to enrich one company and a few people to levels of wealth formerly reserved for emperors and despots if you give a tiny (and I mean tiny) fraction to good causes. Yeah that makes it ok. So it would be OK to take your job and home and profession as long as I drop 2 dollars in the poor box when I'm done. Is that what you're saying???
Why the hell do Gates defenders always bring Linus into the argument? Like Linus and Linux have anything to do with Gates and MS's shenanigans.
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So what? (Score:5, Interesting)
but their names now live on in their philanthropic works.
Only because philanthropy is a way to avoid the government taking half of the estate upon your death.
Give it away to the charity of your choice or let the government take half upon your death.
It's not like you get to take it with you when you go:)
All the hand-wringing about "death taxes" is such bullshit.
Bill Gates Sr., one of many, thinks that the ideas floating around to eliminate the current high inheritance taxes are a bad idea and would be devastating to charities.
Low inheritance taxes preserves an effective nobility and leisure class that will use an accident of birth to make a living as a shareholder. Arguably the builders of wealth should obtain such benefits - not their progeny. Descendents should be provided equal opportunity to compete based on their own merits and talents.
Re:So what? (Score:5, Funny)
Let's just assume that Bill Gates earned all his money through his skills in business and computers or whatever. This large pile of wealth makes him a very powerful person. Is it necessarily in the best interests of our country to have that much power pass on to his kids, just because they happen to be his kids?
I went to college with a bunch of assholes who refused to believe that they deserved anything less than everything they wanted, just because their parents had big bank accounts. And none of them were from billionaire families.
And it's not like the government is going to take all of the money. If they took two thirds of it, there's still billions to be spread around. Some people are going to inherit way more money than I can ever imagine having.
Re:So what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Not really. The others put their money into philanthropic works without any strings attach. Such as the library systems that Carnegie funded. No strings attach.
Gates did a library thing of giving them a 300 dollar computer (more likely it cost MS ~200), and then told them they had to use MS software. This was not really philanthropic work, but a sales (we will give you the handle, you buy the razor). Later when they came under the gun for it, they quite tieing back to MS sales, but the reality is, his philantropy is all about MS.
Of course, that ignores the question of why is everybody so concerned. It is his money and he can do what he chooses to do.
BTW, the inheritence tax came about because of these philanthropists. They themselves pushed for it, just a Bill Gates Sr. pushes it now. If somebody accumulates billions (or trillions), then cool. But the tax keeps our society from creating permanent classes.
Caring for Poor People (Score:5, Interesting)
Copyright doesn't work that way... (Score:4, Informative)
No copyright notice needs to be given. No explicit copyright need to be posted.
Educate yourself [copyright.gov].
What this artist did was to post copyright licensing terms after the use. Without such licensing terms, then one must request permission before making any reproduction of that material.
Re:So what? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:So what? (Score:4, Informative)
I find it very unlikely that the reporting of his purchase would have had any negative effects on the stock price, so I don't really think that there is any connection between him paying the $800k and his profit.
It still looks like he paid the $800k for no apparent reason, at least in this case.
I agree with your point in general, though, in that the fines are nothing more than a "cost of doing business" in a lot of cases.
Re:So what? (Score:3, Insightful)
I doubt that Gates will pay, it will probably be whatever merchant bank was advising him here that screwed up.
Interesting that Gates gets fined for the same violation that "President" Bush commited repeatedly at Harken without any problems.
The Bush violation being somewhat more eggregious because he was selling stock while knowing that the company was cooking its books E
Re:So what? (Score:4, Funny)
DOJ: Sir..
BG Worth: +$1,000k
Gates: Yes???
BG Worth: +$1,000k x 3 secs
DOJ: You didn't fill out some forms
BG Worth: +$1,000k x 10 secs
Gates: How much to pay you off?
BG Worth: +$1,000k x 15 secs
DOJ: 800k
BG Worth: +$1,000k x 2 secs
Gates: Ok
BG Worth: +$1,000k
CNN then reports "In a 30 second conversation Bill Gates made 30 million in interest and paid 800k in fines..."
Re:So what? (Score:5, Funny)
That's why corporal punishment is so much fairer. . . .
Re:So what? (Score:3, Interesting)
Or he would, if the entirety of his $40Billion in assets were liquid. In reality, most of his worth is tied up in (M$ and other) stock, which he can't touch without paradoxically causing it to lose value.
[That fine is] the equivalent of almost two hundred bucks for someone making $100K a year.
And if someone making $100K a year got a $200 parking ticket, do you think they'd start being more careful about where they park, or would they write it off a
actually, for many people, that's less than $5 (Score:5, Informative)
Re:actually, for many people, that's less than $5 (Score:4, Funny)
Re:actually, for many people, that's less than $5 (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So what? (Score:5, Informative)
The fine is not based on how much you make, or how much you are worth (such as setting bail amounts)
Typically, the fine is up to three times the profit you made (or loss you avoided).
Here's an interesting page [boeing.com] (PDF) on the subject. Review section 3.
Re:So what? (Score:3, Insightful)
True enough, but the punative value is very much linked to your net worth.
Three times the profit you made (or loss you avoided) should be the punative value.
... do you think it's fair to fine you $25,000 over that?
Look at it this way, if you were worth $100,000, and you misfiled your paperwork which netted you a cool $1,200
I have
Re:So what? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:So what? (Score:3, Funny)
Just go trade a few songs on Kazaa and you'll get a short letter from some nice people. They'll be more than happy to fine you at least that much...
You don't have to be an Econ major. (Score:3, Interesting)
Behind Door Number One there is $50 billion dollars in cash.
Behind Door Number Two there is also $50 billion dollars in cash, but there are also fifty thousand full-time employees who make and sell hundreds of different products in dozens of different countries, producing $30+ billion in sales revenues, every year. In addition there's God alone knows how many buildings, computers, vehicles, and for all we know maybe secret alien technology borrowed from the Grays. The collective opinion
Kind of Harsh (Score:5, Funny)
http://www.quuxuum.org/~evan/bgnw.html [quuxuum.org]
Big fine (Score:2, Insightful)
Talk about a slap on the wrist! (Score:5, Insightful)
800,000 / 50,000,000 = 1.6%
A 1.6% fine? That seems low when so many dollars are involved.
Too Low (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Too Low (Score:2, Insightful)
What gain is it that you are talking about? Did you read the article?!? He simply didn't file some paperwork. If he had filed the paperwork, he would have still been able to purchase the stock. An $800,000 fine out of $50,000,000 is quite substantial for not filing paperwork.
Re:Too Low (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Too Low (Score:5, Insightful)
He just failed to report a transaction on time. But Slashdot will, of course, breathlessly report it as "BILL GATES FINED $800,000 OVER STOCK PURCHASES!!" like a National Enquirer.
Three words. (Score:5, Insightful)
Basic concept from microeconomic theory: the more you have of something, say for example money, the less each additional unit is worth to you. The marginal utility a person who makes $1 a day gets from a $1 is absolutely massive (life changing experience) compared to the marginal utility a billionare gets (almost nothing).
Adjusting fines and taxes to higher income is not discrimination, it's recognition of the fact that not every dollar is equal.
Re:Three words. (Score:3, Insightful)
As someone pointed out above the punishment is not magically higher than in other cases.
In order for the punishment to have any effect there need to be some kind of (struggling to find the correct word in English) deterrence (sp?).
The law is the same for everyone.
The punishment is different.
That might sound odd, but if you think about it that's not so stup
Re:Too Low (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, if the point of a fine is to prevent behavior, then you would be stupid not to.
-Ted
Yes Too Low (Score:3, Insightful)
Compared to the purchase, it was somewhere less then 2%, which i bet will be nothing compared to the % of return he gets during sale. This is what i see as the problem, not that he has a bizzilion in the bank.
At least as far as I'm concerned thats how it should work.... But i dont make the rules.
Who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Interesting)
Memo to editors: You do no favors for the popularity of [insert favorite OS here] by posting sophomoric, vindictive, and largely irrelevant stories about Bill Gates. On the contrary, it makes you (and what you advocate, by association) look immature.
Just stop it.
Re:Well, look at the story icon! (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, it's true that the forum is opinions and commentary, as it should be, but should this extend to the stories and visual icons of the site? One is much less likely to be
We will get you anyway we can (Score:3, Interesting)
But while we were looking through all your belongings we noticed this little tidbit and jumped on it!
What I'm wondering is... (Score:2)
Re:What I'm wondering is... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:What I'm wondering is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Making money is is sort of thing. I hope you didn't think software was his sort of thing. Maybe 30 years ago, but I think he's moved on.
Re:What I'm wondering is... (Score:4, Funny)
You sure? We were never able to figure out what he's holding in this [cnn.com] picture...
Him, not Microsoft (Score:2, Interesting)
Dang (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Got change? (Score:5, Funny)
Reminds me of a famous quote... (Score:3, Funny)
From Marge vs. the Monorail [snpp.com]
Wow... (Score:2)
Re:Wow... (Score:2)
You know, the megarich tend to be tightwads about the sort of thing.
The perils of Goldfish... (Score:2)
Kind of makes it sound like he's a sex offender.
(Proceeding to NOT go there.)
Re:The perils of Goldfish... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, not at all. However the business rules in this country state that the list of anyone holding more than 10% stock of a publically traded company must be made public. Furthermore, it is the responsibility of the person who perchases the stock to report this information. Mr. Gates is not being held to a higher standard than anyone else.
What's another 800K? (Score:5, Interesting)
The Federal Trade Commission said it had warned Gates about a similar reporting infraction when his personal investment trust bought shares of Republic Services Corp. (RSG: Research, Estimates) in November 2001. The acquisition brought his stake to more than 10 percent of the outstanding shares of the waste-hauling company.
Antitrust rules require that entities must file with the government when their holdings exceed 10 percent of a company's stock.
. Anyway, when you are worth $40 billion you can afford these "luxuries."
Happy Trails!
Erick
Sucks for him (Score:2, Funny)
Percentage, not flat fine (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Percentage, not flat fine (Score:5, Informative)
I think at least Norway has a somewhat similar system to ours at least on some fines. There are other countries I'm sure.
Like this $800000 fine with Bill, most laws like that still amount to a slap on the wrist even if the slap is a bit bigger than using the same fine for everyone.
Re:Percentage, not flat fine (Score:3, Funny)
GatesTrade.com - Only a 1.6% commission! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:GatesTrade.com - Only a 1.6% commission! (Score:2)
Poor Bill... (Score:5, Funny)
Ahh, nevermind.
Bill is above the law. (Score:5, Insightful)
BG pays antitrust NO MIND even when (Score:3, Insightful)
No biggy... (Score:3, Insightful)
800k? (Score:2, Funny)
No new golden toilet bowl seat this month.
from the drop-in-the-ocean dept. (Score:5, Insightful)
For all the griping we do about the duplicitous nature of certain 'fair and balanced' news outlets (and their ilk), it would seem we'd hold Slashdot to some sort of standard.
P.S. Yes, I know this has been hashed, rehashed, and then many times again. hash_count++
What's the point... (Score:5, Insightful)
I love all the conspiracy theory that pops up right away how MS is going to be selling drugs and other bs. A common investing strategy is to have a diverse portfolio and this is clearly part of that for Bill.
Welcome (Score:5, Funny)
to Extremely Slow Day On Slashdot
Stay tuned for exciting stories on
-Steve Balmers traffic ticket for not Yielding
-Steve Jobs buys a house plant
-Carly Fiorina reboots the reproductive system
More late breaking events as they occur....
Article Troll (Score:5, Insightful)
Aside from that, its really sad the level that slashdot has sunk down to in its anti-microsoft smear campaign. I think in the interest of fair journalism, they should go ahead and report to us how much money they, and OSDN as their parent company, have vested in linux, and how much they stand to gain from its success. Notice how they're the first in line to bash SCO for spreading its FUD, when they're just as bad about it? Oh well, they'll just keep going about alienating everyone who isn't a frothing linux zealot and end up digging their own grave.
A $640K fine ought to be enough for anybody (Score:5, Funny)
Why is he buying this stock? (Score:4, Interesting)
turn the horse over (Score:5, Insightful)
This is idiotic. 90% of the posts don't even refer to what rule he violated, simply to the quantity of the fine. You don't give 10 years in prison for a parking ticket, regardless of how much you dislike the offender. His "crime" here wasn't that he launched some anti-competitive hostile takeover of some open-source small-business, it's that he bought some stock (some, not a controlling interest) and didn't officially notify the government about it. This is a mistake, but not an offense that warrants docking someone a week's pay, regardless of what their salary is.
Of course, those complaining about the size of the fine aren't at all interested in the law, they're simply happy to see someone they hate getting penalized and wish it was more.
Let's get this straight... (Score:3, Insightful)
By my estimate, if MS stock inflated by even a cent on the share, Bill Gates would have enough gain to wipe out the fine and have enough spare change to buy several additional homes.
This is before you consider the rest of his amazing wealth, the interest that is gaining, or any other aspect of this.
In other news: (Score:3, Funny)
I think, relative to net worth, I put more in the parking meter this morning.
Bill's Revenge (Score:3, Funny)
Viagra II (Score:3, Funny)
Percentage Fines (Score:4, Interesting)
I thought of this mainly in the fact that when I was poor, a speeding ticket could ruin my budget for months, whereas now I am pretty well off and couldn't give a damn about a $100 ticket. I'm not much of a speeder anyways, but it just doesn't make sense that the penalty is less meaningful to me just because I make more money.
I know there are punative damages in civil cases (which are great, but shouldn't go to the plaintiff as they do now). Is there any similar system in criminal cases? Certainly not in most fines that I see -- they're flat.
Just a wondering...
Why should I really care? (Score:5, Insightful)
But really, people. This guy's got a ton of money that gets invested for him by his mob of finance monkeys. Ultimately, he pays the price when one of them screw up, but do you really think that he called his broker and insisted on this deal?
Okay, so he screwed up by hiring some folks that didn't do their research prior to making an investment in his name, but let's not harrangue the guy for it. There are much better reason for which to lambast Bill Gates!
P.S. - If we spent as much time focusing on what we could do to make Open Source superior to Microsoft's crap as we do on on poking fun at Microsoft's crap, we might actually have had fully superior products by now...
Re:Drug Maker? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Drug Maker? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Drug Maker?---Correction (Score:3, Interesting)
This diversification along with his philanthropy through his foundation (though sometimes self-serving) is a relatively new thing. For many many years, what always shocked me was his decidedly undiversified portfolio. He kept an extremely high percentage of his total wealth in Microsoft stock for a very long time. While it could certainly have backfired and any financial advisor would say it was foolish and overly risky, it i
Re:Drug Maker? (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, you heard that right: MS Drugs [icos.com].
Re:Drug Maker? (Score:4, Insightful)
It is called investing. Something to do with making money (and being on the board of directors, which is why he ran afoul, I believe)
And it was Bill Gates investment, not Microsoft's.
Re:Drug Maker? (Score:5, Informative)
For the same reason Martha Stewart was interested in ImClone. Drug companies have huge potential in share price gain as they tend to copyright everything, and sell at huge margins... provided, of course, their product gets past the FDA.
Remember, it was Bill Gates the person that bought the stock and got fined, not Micro$oft.
Re:Drug Maker? (Score:2)
Re:MS, Martha and Drugs... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:MS, Martha and Drugs... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:MS, Martha and Drugs... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:MS, Martha and Drugs... (Score:5, Interesting)
What she did was lie about her guilt, and that's what she is facing jail time over.
No, wait, that's not right. She didn't lie about her guilt, because she was innocent. Ok, so, what she's facing jailtime over is lying about her innocence.
No, that can't be right either, because she was innocent.
Ok, so maybe your wife has a point.
KFG
Re:MS, Martha and Drugs... (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, it's exactly the other way around. She has been convicted for what she said.
If she had simply remained silent there would have been no crime.
Nor do I at all confuse "innocent" with "found guilty," and have posted previously on the difference between the two.
O.J. is not "Innocent". He is also "Not Guilty."
One is a statement of fact, the other a statement of legal find
Re:MS, Martha and Drugs... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah! I held up a bank and got 12 years, but he drove 20mph over the limit and all he got is a fine?? Mere slap on the wrist! How unfair!
Bill Gates' "crime" is merely failing to report a perfectly proper transaction on time. Marth Stewart used inside information (not in itself a crime in US) and then conspired to cover it up. She may have been a "woman-champion", which is why your wife may sympathize, but her crime is of much bigger scale, than this one.
Re:MS, Martha and Drugs... (Score:3, Insightful)
it's a woman thing.
Or perhaps it's a total bitch thing. Martha probably would've been let off the hook, but she probably barked at them about how to properly conduct the investigation, how to cordially approach someone with charges, what not to wear at a hearing, proper speaking skills at a press conference, etc etc etc.
More than likely, Bill just volunteered the money and told them not to spend it all in one place. He probably tossed over a large
Re:MS, Martha and Drugs... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:MS, Martha and Drugs... (Score:4, Interesting)
It is funny with Microsoft, bill gates, martha stewart, bill clinton or any one else is in trouble, their popularity always seems to get in the way of the facts. Bill broke a minor law and didn't cover it up or lie about it (in this case any ways) the others seemed to do stuff even more shady by covering thier tracts and that doesn't seem to mean anything.
I guess it is like someone was speeding and got a ticket, the other person was fleeing and eluding the police tryign to give them the ticket and in turn got another penalty because they didn't stop.
Re:MS, Martha and Drugs... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:$800,000 is hardly a deterrent to Gates (Score:3, Informative)
Much less than that, I figure. Bill is currently worth about 40 billion; $800,000/$40,000,000,000 is 2.0e-5. Take your net worth and multiply it by 2.0e-5: it'll be less than a dollar if you are worth less than $50,000 (net--that means subtract liabilities from assets).