SEC suspends trading in SCO shares

THE BANKRUPT SOCK PUPPET of Microsoft, The SCO Group saw trading in its shares suspended by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) yesterday for not having filed SEC reports in over two years.

SCO is the company that had daft dreams of making billions by extracting 'licences' from Linux users. It sued IBM and Novell in attempts to claim that Linux infringed Unix SVRX copyrights that it didn't even own. It lost in court to Novell, twice, although it still has a last ditch appeal pending. In the process it took refuge in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, from which it has never emerged. Substantially all of its few remaining assets are expected to be sold off soon.

The trading suspension is temporary, through 18 April, pending an administrative court hearing. According to a comment posted at Groklaw, such hearings are often perfunctory.

Groklaw member _Arthur wrote, "If a company choses to contest its upcoming revocation, the company must state that its accounting and its audit [are] underway, with the corroborating testimony of their auditor."

Apparently most companies in such straits with the SEC never bother to show up at those hearings, and thus their stock is revoked. The hearing is expected to be held within 30 days.

Another Groklaw commenter noted that "for many weeks the stock has closed under 5 cents; recently at 3 cents."

If and when SCO's shares are revoked they will become worthless, of course. The INQUIRER knew SCO's stock would eventually become worthless after it attacked Linux eight years ago. µ