Theranos Misled Investors and Consumers Who Used Its Blood Test • Hacker News Board

Re: Theranos Misled Investors and Consumers Who Used Its Blood Test

#101

Post by milankovic » Mon, Mar 19, 2018, 1:58 PM UTC

zaidf wrote: post #77

cwkoss wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my limited understanding, he broke the law but was able to return all the funds to investors. So there weren't damages per se, but I think statutory penalties instead.

SEC cannot bring criminal charges. The Justice Department can. We will see if they do in the case of Elizabeth Holmes.

Okay, interesting. Although it seems a bit strange that this would end up in Washington at the federal level, i.e. Justice Department.. I don't think that they have to deal with just any case of fraud, even big ones. But I could be mistaken.

But if the Justice Department handles this I wouldn't be surprised if this whole thing gets kind of, well, political..

Also, this somehow begs the question who brought the charges in Shkreli's case.

Re: Theranos Misled Investors and Consumers Who Used Its Blood Test

#102

Post by milankovic » Mon, Mar 19, 2018, 2:01 PM UTC

cwkoss wrote: post #73

milankovic wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, wow.. Honest question: I know that plea deals and other rather arcane behind-the-scenes agreements are a thing, but as someone who is not all too familiar with the American justice system, is that really the only relevant difference? So, what kept Shkreli from taking a deal?

From my limited understanding, he broke the law but was able to return all the funds to investors. So there weren't damages per se, but I think statutory penalties instead.

Well, that is also my limited understanding so far..

Is it accurate to say that he broke the law by misleading his investors?

Re: Theranos Misled Investors and Consumers Who Used Its Blood Test

#103

Post by milankovic » Mon, Mar 19, 2018, 2:04 PM UTC

danaliv wrote: post #78

milankovic wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, wow.. Honest question: I know that plea deals and other rather arcane behind-the-scenes agreements are a thing, but as someone who is not all too familiar with the American justice system, is that really the only relevant difference? So, what kept Shkreli from taking a deal?

The US has two parallel justice systems. One is civil, the other is criminal. The purpose of the civil justice system is to resolve disputes and amend harms. The purpose of the criminal system is to punish. Shkreli was charged in the criminal system; Theranos was caught up in the civil system. You can’t take a plea deal in the civil system because there’s nothing to plead to. You can only settle, which essentially me…

> The US has two parallel justice systems. One is civil, the other is criminal.

Yes, so far it's all pretty clear I think..

But since my reply has been to this comment:

> Shkreli fought it - she took the deal.

I was a bit confused by this. Because this implies there was a deal (or maybe more than one deal) in Shkreli's case, as well as in the Theranos case.

Re: Theranos Misled Investors and Consumers Who Used Its Blood Test

#104

Post by headmelted » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 8:53 AM UTC

subpixel wrote: post #87

Nomentatus wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want completeness, there may be another possibility: we know that venture capitalists (who spend other people's money, for the most part) have used their positions to improve their sex lives (#metoo) contrary to the interests of their investors. It's just assumed none of them have ever actually handed over millions of other people's money to hairbrained projects in order to accomplish this. I very much hope th…

Well, that line of thinking opens up a whole other angle of speculation (and of course that's all it is, so I won't detail it) regarding how events may have unfolded in this debacle.

If the implication in this is that in some way investment was made in exchange for anything "else" from Elizabeth Holmes, then I have to say that I haven't seen any reason to think that and it's offensive to suggest that any kind of sex-for-investment scenario was happening without any basis for believing that.

I may have completely misunderstood what was being suggested here though..