BankAtlantic Sues Firm, Analyst Bove for Defamation

Here's an extremely interesting development!

BankAtlantic Sues Firm, Analyst Bove for Defamation

• BankAtlantic Sues Firm, Analyst Bove for Defamation
  
  By Edvard Pettersson
  
  July 21 (Bloomberg) -- BankAtlantic Bancorp Inc. sued Ladenburg Thalmann & Co. and analyst Richard Bove for a report on possible bank failures called ``Who is Next?,'' alleging the institution was defamed by its inclusion.
  
  BankAtlantic, a unit of BFC Financial Corp., sued for defamation and negligence in a complaint filed today in state court in Broward County, Florida. BankAtlantic, based in Fort Lauderdale, jumped as high as 31 percent.
  
  ``While Bove's report purports to consider which banks might fail, he failed to examine the health of the banks and thrifts in his report,'' BankAtlantic Chairman Alan Levan said in a statement. ``He only examined holding company data which, in at least our case, is meaningless information.''
  
  The Florida lawsuit follows a North Carolina appeals court ruling in April holding that analysts couldn't be sued for expressing opinions. In that case, Nucor Corp., the largest U.S. steelmaker by market value, lost a bid to reinstate a libel and unfair trade practices lawsuit against Prudential Equity Group LLC and two former analysts for comments made in a report.
  
  The Charlotte, North Carolina-based steelmaker sued Prudential and analysts John Tumazos and Paretosh Misra in 2007 after they wrote Nucor may trigger antitrust lawsuits and had ``monopoly dreams.''
  
  107 Institutions
  
  BankAtlantic's shares fell 25 percent to close at 90 cents on July 14, the day after Bove's report was published. The bank said at the time that the analyst mistakenly looked to the finances of its holding company instead of those of the bank.
  
  ``As an analyst, I feel that I should be able to say what I choose to say as long as it is objective and based upon fact,'' Bove said today in an interview with Bloomberg Television. ``In the banking industry, there is a fear that statements by analysts which are very negative could have an impact.''
  
  Bove, 67, added that he wasn't aware of any other analyst ``that's been sued for writing something about the industry.''
  
  ``This isn't a matter of opinion, it's a misrepresentation of fact,'' Gene Stearns, a lawyer for BankAtlantic, said in a telephone interview.
  
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Video clip from cnbc: http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=799544641