Federal Court Ruled for SBI-USA & Its CEO
April 10 2008 - 12:18AM
PR Newswire (US)
NEWPORT BEACH, Calif., April 10 /Xinhua-PRNewswire-FirstCall/ --
SBI-USA LLC announced today that a civil lawsuit against its CEO
Mr. Shelly Singhal and SBI-USA LLC is over after a federal court in
Southern California granted summary judgment for SBI-USA on the
entire case and dismissed with prejudice the whole case against Mr.
Singhal. "This case ended with a clean sweep across the board for
Mr. Singhal and his company, SBI-USA, thus providing a fitting and
just end to a long and distracting process that had an unfair
impact on Mr. Singhal's business activities and the companies with
which he was associated when the case was filed in 2007," stated
SBI-USA's counsel in the case, Pamela Johnston from Foley &
Lardner LLP. The Court announced its decision to grant summary
judgment for SBI-USA on March 14, 2008 during a hearing on the
motion; the Court had previously dismissed with prejudice the
individual case against Mr. Singhal. Media coverage associated with
the initial allegations in the case had a particularly negative
impact on Xinhua Finance Media Ltd ("XFMedia"; Nasdaq: XFML), which
went public on Nasdaq in March 2007 with Mr. Singhal as the CFO of
the company. Certain financial media published inaccurate and
misleading reports undermining the credibility of Mr. Singhal and
of XFMedia by questioning the decision not to include this case in
the XFMedia prospectus on the grounds that it was a nuisance
lawsuit. "I feel validated by this decision," said Mr. Singhal. "We
said all along that this case was without merit, and it is
wonderful to be vindicated. The decision by the lawyers and bankers
at the time not to include this frivolous case in the XFMedia
prospectus was absolutely correct. The misleading accusations in
the media were just that -- misleading." It is a shame how easy it
is for people to file such nuisance lawsuits in the United States,"
Mr. Singhal added. "Everyone is entitled to a day in court, but
periodically that right is abused by people for financial or other
gain." In order to spare the company the distraction and negative
impact from the SBI-USA lawsuit at the time of the negative media
attention, Mr. Singhal resigned his positions at XFMedia and Xinhua
Finance Limited (Tokyo Stock Exchange: 9399) while nevertheless
holding to his view that the case was frivolous. Another part of
the media blitz against XFMedia at that time involved a similar
nuisance class action lawsuit against Stonepath Group Ltd, which
was originally dismissed in April of 2006, with prejudice, and that
dismissal was affirmed by the Federal Court of Appeals in July of
last year according to Buchanan Ingersol, who defended Stonepath in
the litigation. "While I feel we have all been vindicated, it is an
incredible shame that the media is not held to a standard of
balance and accuracy, or even simple fact checking. It is also
unlikely they will give this court decision as much attention as
they gave the negative, inaccurate reports, but I would love to be
proved wrong by the media," said Mr. Singhal. About SBI-USA SBI USA
is an investment company with operations in Newport Beach,
California and Hong Kong SAR. For more information: Michael Friedl
Tel: +1-949-679-8338 Email: DATASOURCE: SBI-USA LLC CONTACT:
Michael Friedl of SBI-USA, +1-949-679-8338, Michael.Friedl@sbi-
usa.com
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