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Judge in Nokia and Apple lawsuit owned Apple stock during proceedings

appleinsider.com

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Re: Judge in Nokia and Apple lawsuit owned Apple stock during proceedings

#51

Post by arcbyte »

Nbox9 wrote: post #46
timy2shoes wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any ownership required the Judge to recluse himself. Where does this requirement come from? Citation please.

> It is unclear how many shares Judge Conley possessed during the case, but ownership of company stock in any capacity would have required his recusal under the Code of Conduct for United States Judges. The apple insider article.

Only if ownership of the stock was substantially affected by the outcome of the case. Which gets back to OP's point of needing to know more specifics of the judge's holdings.

Re: Judge in Nokia and Apple lawsuit owned Apple stock during proceedings

#52

Post by beervirus »

marcinzm wrote: post #26
beervirus wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn’t look like this is just an index fund situation. >ownership in a mutual or common investment fund that holds securities is not a “financial interest” in such securities unless the judge participates in the management of the fund https://www.uscourts.gov/judges-judgeships/code-conduct-unit...

They could have someone managing their portfolio that basically does the same strategy as a mutual fund but technically isn't one. Unless they paid attention they wouldn't know what was being invested in at any given point in time.

That is very possible, and I’d say the most likely answer here. It still doesn’t look great, but it’s not the kind of thing you’d expect to compromise the judge’s impartiality.

Re: Judge in Nokia and Apple lawsuit owned Apple stock during proceedings

#53

Post by Revenant-15 »

LightG wrote: post #45
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do we honestly think Nokia would have been able to compete in the same mobile OS space that not even Microsoft could carve out a space in? At the time.. sure. Symbian was great back then, and in many many countries, there were no large data plans back then, and a phone that needed to be online for a lot of the gimmicky features to work was not something a lot of people wanted or needed, because of data costs... app…

Symbian was great back then against feature phones ... but absolutely obliterated by todays competition. I have a hard time believe they would have stood a chance (even assuming the software was evens, organisationally they wouldn't have made it work).

Well, good thing they didn't have to compete with today's mobile OS's back then. Android back then was abjectly terrible. They definitely had a shot at the second spot behind Apple, especially in low-income countries.

Re: Judge in Nokia and Apple lawsuit owned Apple stock during proceedings

#54

Post by sidlls »

pc86 wrote: post #24
Waterluvian wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just checked. I own Apple stock through my RRSP mutual fund. Looks like 0.5% of my investment is Apple. Can I ascertain, about myself, that this wouldn’t affect my decision making?

Even more, if 0.5% of your investment is enough to affect your decision making, you're going to be so paralyzed by analysis paralysis and competing goals you'd never be able to get anything done.

This assumes humans consciously and continuously make decisions by a thorough and comprehensive review of their own interests.

In practice this can provide a subtle influence without having to undergo that depth of analysis.

Re: Judge in Nokia and Apple lawsuit owned Apple stock during proceedings

#55

Post by elliekelly »

timy2shoes wrote: post #44
Nbox9 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don’t think how much ownership is the real question now. 1. The judge disclosed it. Presumably he wasn’t doing anything sneaky because he is the one raising the issue. 2. Any ownership required the Judge to recluse himself. Thus (3) 3. (The real takeaway) The verdict of the case between Nokia and Apple is on much less strong legal grounds now. This is the real point.

> Any ownership required the Judge to recluse himself. Where does this requirement come from? Citation please.

The Code of Conduct for United States Judges[1] Canon 3(C)(1):

> (C) Disqualification.

> (1) A judge shall disqualify himself or herself in a proceeding in which the judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned, including but not limited to instances in which:

> …

> (c) the judge knows that the judge, individually or as a fiduciary, or the judge’s spouse or minor child residing in the judge’s household, has a financial interest in the subject matter in controversy or in a party to the proceeding, or any other interest that could be affected substantially by the outcome of the proceeding;

The interesting (IMO) tidbit here is the “knowledge” aspect of the canon. Presumably the Judge was unaware of their investment (rather than unaware of their ethical obligations) and, by my reading at least, where they had no knowledge of their financial interest they had no obligation to recuse. Although I do think it’s reasonable to expect Judges to conduct a conflicts check prior to hearing a case that would involve making themselves aware of any interest they might have in the public companies appearing before them.

[1] https://www.uscourts.gov/judges-judgeships/code-conduct-unit...

Re: Judge in Nokia and Apple lawsuit owned Apple stock during proceedings

#57

Post by gruez »

Nbox9 wrote: post #46
timy2shoes wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any ownership required the Judge to recluse himself. Where does this requirement come from? Citation please.

> It is unclear how many shares Judge Conley possessed during the case, but ownership of company stock in any capacity would have required his recusal under the Code of Conduct for United States Judges. The apple insider article.

>but ownership of company stock in any capacity would have required his recusal under the Code of Conduct for United States Judges.

So, most judges? I assume they tend to be high net worth individuals, so it's very likely they own APPL in some capacity in their stock portfolios and/or retirement funds.

Re: Judge in Nokia and Apple lawsuit owned Apple stock during proceedings

#59

Post by LightG »

Revenant-15 wrote: post #53
LightG wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Symbian was great back then against feature phones ... but absolutely obliterated by todays competition. I have a hard time believe they would have stood a chance (even assuming the software was evens, organisationally they wouldn't have made it work).

Well, good thing they didn't have to compete with today's mobile OS's back then. Android back then was abjectly terrible. They definitely had a shot at the second spot behind Apple, especially in low-income countries.

Agreed, Android was terrible back then, but you could see the trajectory and it was housed and organised under one roof (back when Google were doing some things right), as opposed to Symbian who just seemed too fragmented to get lift off.

Re: Judge in Nokia and Apple lawsuit owned Apple stock during proceedings

#60

Post by Waterluvian »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #41
Waterluvian wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just checked. I own Apple stock through my RRSP mutual fund. Looks like 0.5% of my investment is Apple. Can I ascertain, about myself, that this wouldn’t affect my decision making?

No you can’t. Self-preservation and greed can easily be working in your subconscious. Humans are easily this fallible.

At 0.5%?

This seems laughably academic but not likely founded in reality.

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