It's Official: Solengo is a Suer

Solengo Capital has made good on its threat and filed a lawsuit against Dealbreaker for posting its "confidential" offering brochure on the website. Here's a Reuters article on this latest exploit in hedge fund arrogance and junk litigation.

What I find interesting about this lawsuit is how it piles hubris upon hubris. The very fact that Solengo exists is a travesty, as it is essentially a rebirth of the collapsed Amaranth fund. If investors had half a brain, there would be no market for this Wall Street version of a recycled ham sandwich.

That's one thing hedge funds have never lacked -- arrogance. They may not beat the indexes, but they know how to hire lawyers to browbeat journalists. As Chris Faille pointed out in a comment in this blog:

The Dealbreaker/injunction business is an example of the chronic political tone-deafness of the alternative-investment industry in the US.

The industry ought to be trying to get out the message, "we're only as secretive as we have to be. Reg D and other legal considerations require us to play things close to the vest, and of course for every industry there are concerns with proprietary information, but we can be as transparent as these constraints allow."

That isn't its message. Its actual message too often is more like "get outa my face, mutti focker."

What is worse, it tries to use the legal system to help it keep reasonable inquiries and inquirers "outa my face."

Let's pray that investors convey the same message to Solengo.

© 2007 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.

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