October 17, 2025 • 29 mins
Potential off-ramps to end the US government shutdown leads Bloomberg Intelligence analysts’ discussion on this episode of the Votes and Verdicts podcast. Nathan Dean examines that topic and the status of crypto legislation, while BI litigation and policy analysts discuss other key catalysts. Ben Elliott explores the ramifications of FHFA Director Bill Pulte’s social media posts about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac risks. And Holly Froum analyzes a Delaware Supreme Court hearing involving Elon Musk’s Tesla pay package as well as the outlook for a US Supreme Court case concerning Bayer and its Monsanto unit’s Roundup weedkiller.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Hello, and welcome to the Votes and Verdicts podcast, hosted
by the Litigation and Policy team at Bloomberg Intelligence, the
investment research platform of Bloomberg LP on the Bloomberg Terminal.
Bloomberg Intelligence has five hundred analysts and strategists working across
the globe and focused on all major markets. Our coverage
includes over two thousand equities and credits, and we have
(00:38):
outlooks on more than ninety industries and one hundred market industries,
currencies and commodities. This podcast series examines the intersection of
business policy and law, and today is our weekly look
at the litigation and policy catalysts that we're watching and
that we think will impact companies across a number of
different sectors. My name is Ali, It's dying. I'm an
(01:00):
analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence covering litigation in the financial sector,
and I'm delighted as always today to be joined by
a handful of my BI colleagues. As always, you can
find all of our research on the Bloomberg terminal at
BI go, and you can find most of our litigation
and policy research on our dashboard, which is available on
(01:21):
the terminal at BI laws go. Just to timestamp this
since things move quickly. It is Thursday, October sixteenth, twenty
twenty five. It is two thirty two pm in New York.
And with that, let me bring in Nathan Dean, who's
our chief policy analyst down in DC. Nathan, you're wearing
(01:43):
a tie. You didn't have to put that on for me.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Ah, No, it's you know, it's IMF week. Yep, we've
got to spirits it up from IMF World Bank Week.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Sounds good. So, Nathan, what are we in? I guess
it's day sixteen of the shutdown, right.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Yep, so day sixteen. And according to Polymarket, just as
of about three minutes ago, the majority of people, at
a majority of thirty two percent think that this government
shutdown is going to go beyond November fifteenth.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
So another month, yeah, okay, another month a majority or
thirty two percent.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
I didn't catch that, sorry, thirty two sorry, thirty two
percent majority think more than fifty percent think this is
going into November, okay. And I have no reason why
to dissuade them from that, because here we are on
October sixteenth. Neither side is talking to each other, neither
(02:34):
side feels that they are in a position where they
are being hurt politically from this, and President Trump is
removing a lot of the pressure points that normally would
bring Congress together to come up with a solution. October fifteenth, yesterday,
there was the day that the military was going to
miss a paycheck. President Trump reallocated around sixty eight billion
dollars of already existing funds to pay the military. Next
(02:56):
military paycheck is October twenty ninth. Whether or not they
have the money to do that, then nobody really knows.
But President Trump is also just trying to alleviate these
pressure points so that they can get just back to
this idea of let's just have a debate and let's
just try and see which party blinks first. So which
party blinks first? I can't really tell you. The Democrats
(03:17):
are looking at polling data that suggests that independents are
blaming us slightly better than republic or slightly more Republicans
than Democrats for this, They're feeling decent. Democrats are looking
at polling data or sorry, Republicans are looking at polling
data that suggests that the base is quite content with
their strategy. They're feeling pretty good. When the director of
the O and B russ vote lays off four thousand
(03:38):
workers like he did last Friday. Obviously we saw court
challenges to that, but it just really pushes the Democrats
into their shell and hardens their resolve. So the way
I think this ends is probably a couple of things.
One the November first pressure points. If the military pay
can be resolved, November first is when Obamacare subsidies ACA
and enrollment goes up. Sorry, ACAA enrollment starts, and the premiums,
(04:03):
the increased premiums will be communicated out to those who
are enrolling. The Democrats may say at that point, look,
you know, now that we know how much money this
is going to go up, let to reopen the government
and say to the Republicans, Okay, what are you guys
going to do? But I would also just say, in
terms of snap benefits, that's also November first. Snap benefits
(04:23):
also known as food stamps. They've been allocated for October,
they've been appropriated for October, they have not been allocated
or appropriated for November. Forty two million Americans utilize food stamps.
Now there is possible the USDA could reissue other funds.
We haven't really looked into it all that much. But again,
that could be a match to the pressure point if
it goes into November Thanksgiving travel, holiday travel, chaos at
(04:47):
the airports, that could be a pressure point. So long
witted waves just saying we have to stay tuned.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Yeah, and it sounds like November has several possible inflection points,
see there, like the first of the month or closer
to Thanksgiving. All right, so we'll keep watching that. Let's
talk crypto for a couple of minutes, Nathan. The Genius
Act on stable coins that was obviously passed, I don't
(05:16):
know a few months ago, but it sounds like at
least the banks in particular want to make some tweaks
to it because of loopholes concerning you know, rewards programs
that may get around the ban on you know, being
able to collect interest.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Yeah, exactly, I mean, and this is coming up as
part of the negotiations over the Clarity Act and the
Responsible Innovation Financial Responsible Financial Innovation Act of the r
f i A. Now, what the bank's here is they
want to close the loophole, or at least extend the
loophole so that stable coin issuers currently under the Genius
Act can't paign interest or yield on their stable coins.
(05:54):
But there's nothing in there that prohibits platforms like coinbase
from offering rewards. And I know this is an audio
only podcast, but I said rewards in air quotes. You know,
there's nothing that prevents third parties from paying rewards again
air quotes. But what I will say here is that
the banks are now pushing for that loophole to be
(06:16):
extended so that people can't pay for these rewards, and
the crypto industry, as you can imagine, is pushing back
pretty hard. Now it's too early to tell which side
will win or lose. The way I like in it
is to my children fighting. I love both my children,
and when they fight, I can't pick a winner or loser.
I just want them to stop.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
And I was winning for you to say love in
the air quotes.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
But you know, when it comes to the crypto lobby,
you have a very very powerful lobbying apparatus. When you
have the banking lobby, you have a very very powerful
lobbying apparatus. And what happens when one very powerful lobbying
apparat goes up against one very powerful lobbying apparatus. The
policymaker essentially looks at both of their children and say,
I love you both, go away. I want to watch football.
(07:00):
And I think that's what's going to happen here, is
is that the banks are going to push for this
loophole to be extended. The crypto folks are going to
say no, and if they have any chance of getting
a deal, I think the policy makers are just going
to say, I choose the status quote do nothing like.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
This legislation was passed not that long ago, right, it
was I don't know, three months ago, and you know
they're already trying to make changes. It just seems very
odd to me.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Yeah, and very very abnormal because they usually don't have
fixes to this magnitude so quickly after such a deal.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Right.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
But you know, this is just the This is step
one of the thousand step fight between traditional finance and
crypto ye that we're going to see play out over
the next few years because crypto has an extremely powerful
lobbying apparatus and it's not going away, yep.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
And they have a lot of friends in the administration
as well. All right, sticking with crypto, but just talking
about the broader Market Structure bill, what's going on with
the Clarity Act. I feel like we haven't heard much
about it. Is it sort of just stagnant.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Yeah, you haven't heard much about it because there's disagreements
over on the Senate site. The House has already passed
Clarity and that's where Clarity is going to stay. The
Senate is working on their Responsible Financial Innovation Act, and
there's two portions to that. It's the Senate Banking Portion
in the Senate AGG portion. The Senate Banking portion is out.
This deals with securities and this deals with you know,
(08:22):
the jurisdiction of the sec The Senate ag portion was
supposed to be out in the month of September. It didn't.
We're still waiting it and it most likely won't be
out while the government is shut down because some staffers
are essential, some staffers aren't, and so you know, each
member of Congress gets the deceme teams who's essential or not,
So you know, there could be some crypto staffers that
(08:44):
are sitting at home. There could be other crypto staffers,
you know, working in the office. So we're not going
to get really much of a bill from the Senate
AGG portion anytime soon. But the problem is is that
over the Senate Banking Committee. The Democrats aren't exactly thrilled
with how the Republicans are pursuing this bill. At the moment,
I think there are enough Democrats that could come on
(09:05):
board with a bill. But the process is playing out
right now is the Republicans are writing the legislation and
they're sending it to the Dems and they're saying, Okay,
here's what it is. The Democrats are essentially saying, no,
we want to have a little bit more insight into
this as you're trying to compile what the language is.
Because the traditional finance folks are coming in here and
saying we don't like a lot of this, and when
(09:27):
the very powerful banking opparatus comes in, even on the
Democratic side, it causes these policy makers to hit pause.
So I think where it goes is that when the
government reopens, and let's just call it November, they'll probably
need about two to three months to get back to work.
But I don't think that delays my overall time frame
of first half of next year. So you know, we'll
see when the language comes out, but I think I
(09:49):
think they can get there.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Okay, all right, we will. We'll keep watching that all right,
thanks Nathan. Let's stick with DC and bring in Ben Elliott. Ben.
How you doing?
Speaker 3 (10:01):
Yeah? How are you?
Speaker 1 (10:02):
I'm doing well. So Ben covers Fanny May and Freddie Mack.
I cover the litigation for Fanny and Freddie. So there's
often confusion because Ben's last name is the same as
my first name. Sometimes clients think we're the same person.
We are not. We're in two different locations today. We
are two separate people. But Ben, over the weekend, FHFA
(10:22):
director that's the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the conservator and
regulator for Fanny and Freddie. The director Bill Poulty tweeted
this out quotes real quotes important for anyone interested in
Fannie May, and most of that was in all caps
except for Fannie May. Please read the full risk sections
that Fannie May has listed in their ten k end quotes.
(10:46):
He then tweeted a similar tweet the next day, But
you know, switched fan of May for Freddie Mack. And
then I think that was sort of it in terms
of what he was saying about about this issue. But
you know, you sent that to me over the weekend, Well,
(11:06):
you know, what do you make of those tweets? You
put out a react two days ago saying, Fanny Freddie
investors finally seeing dilution risk because you did see some
movement in the market, and so that was your reaction
to it. So sort of tell us you're thinking about all.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
This, sonny. Looking at the chart of the Bloomerg terminal
of their share price, they never got above two dollars
during the Biden administration, and they peeked around fourteen or
sixteen dollars and they've come down about twenty five percent
essentially since Bill Boldi tweeted those two tweets. And if
(11:44):
you if you look at what he linked investors do,
it's a very scary.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Section of disclosures. Well, it's a lot in there, right,
I mean it's multiple pages.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
There's a lot in there.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
And right up at the top, the number one risk
essentially says that no one has any no one is
in any way beholden or responsible to people who are
buying the common stock of these companies. The board has
no fiduciary duty. The companies are controlled by f h
(12:15):
f A treasury owns the companies essentially in their entirety
by virtue of owning the senior preferred chairs and and
and basically what you can interpreted from that is that
if there's any value left over whatsoever from a recapitalization transaction,
that'll be basically at the discretion of Treasury.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
And and so I think people were really taken aback
by this.
Speaker 4 (12:41):
POLTI has been out there tweeting a lot of very bullish,
optimistic things. There was a news report that linked the
President Trump's tweet about a combined mortgage company two actually,
so that that was something that he had sort of
(13:02):
been driving. And it makes you sort of ask the question,
what does this mean? Where are they going with this?
Do they have a plan? And I think it's really
not clear to investors, and I think that's kind of
what explains the price action we've seen the last couple
of days.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
And a lot of this goes to what is gonna
you know, if they do sort of try to get
these companies out of conservativeship have some sort of offering,
as they've hinted at many times, both the President and Pulty.
I think that what are they going to do with
Treasury's senior preferred shares? Right? And there's I guess two
(13:38):
most likely possibilities. One is that they just write down
treasuries liquidation preference essentially, which is like three hundred and
fifty billion dollars worth and just forgives it, or they
convert those shares to common stock and there and thereby
dilute the current common shareholders. And I guess concern that
(14:01):
the marketers may be reflecting is that these tweets by
POLTI are warning people that, you know, conversion may be
the more likely packed and you've been you've been saying
that you think that's the more likely path. You want
to sort of explain your thinking on that.
Speaker 4 (14:19):
Yeah, what has to ask oneself? Why would the FHFA
director who's so optimistic about these companies suddenly I feel
the heed to point investors to a risk section that
is primarily focused on on the dilution risk of the
common stoff. My interpretation of that is that something was
communicated to FHFA, either from Treasury or elsewhere, that there's
(14:46):
quite a lot of precedent, and you're the legal expert here,
so way.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
I mean, that's not get too far overboard, but the weeds.
Speaker 4 (14:54):
But you know, these shareholders have been fighting an uphill
battle against this for for almost two decades and basically
at every turn they've lost until recently.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
If you want to mention that a little bit, yeah,
I mean, well.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
I don't know. If you want to finish your thought,
then I can jump in.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:09):
But so so essentially, there's there's no practical reason why
Treasury would write down their senior preferred stock. Some people
argue it might improve the valuation, it might make future
investors somehow feel better about the companies, but all the
economic damage has been done. The network sweep is in
(15:29):
the past. The earnings have been taken by Treasury, and
and they are contractually, you know, they're rightful owners of
those earnings in the form of liquidation preference. And and
keep in mind that that change was done under the
Trump administration. Treasury Secretary Manution, who, if you sort of
(15:52):
take former FHFA director Mark Colabri at his word, basically
kind of got cold feet at the end of his term,
instead of trying to move forward with release in some
form or fashion, invented this new mechanic where the companies
would retain earnings, but it would accrue to Treasury as
a higher liquidation problems. So there's no reason for them
to about face at this point. And say, you know,
(16:14):
we don't want this three hundred and fifty billion dollars anymore.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Except that some of their very prominent supporters do want
that outcome, and I'm talking about bi Lack in particular,
for instance.
Speaker 4 (16:26):
Except that we want to we want to improve Persian
Square's performance this year and basically give away twenty percent
of the economic value of the companies man essentially what
it would amount to the exchange.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
One could also make the argumentation, and this is what
you were prompting me to jump in with earlier, that
you know, in terms of potential litigation over whatever the
government does here, because everything they do so far has
been litigated. You know, if if they do convert to
common and dilute those shares, you could see, you know
(17:03):
that that would be an impetus for common stock shareholders
to sue. I don't know, you know, it's unclear what
exactly that claim would be. It could potentially be something
like a breach of the implied covenant of good faith
and fair deal in meaning that you know, the government
sort of breached the reasonable investment expectations of the shareholders,
(17:24):
which is the only claim that has succeeded among the
decade of litigation that Fanny and Freddie investors have brought
against the government, and they got a jury verdict in
a case just a couple of years ago on that
claim that's on appeal. You know, there's a possibility that
it could be reversed because you know, the Supreme Court
(17:46):
in another case said that FHFA really has a ton
of discretion here to do what it wants to do
with with the companies. So you know, it's not clear
that such a claim would SUCs Seed, but it could linger,
which could slow things down. Whereas if they if the
(18:06):
Treasury Department wrote off its senior preferred shares, there's legal
issues there too, right it because Treasury can't can't just
do that. And part of the reason Calabria said Treasury
got cold feet was because the lawyers said that they
didn't think they could just write right down uh, their
their ownership stake. But you know, I'm not sure who
(18:28):
would have standing to sue if the Treasury did do that.
So you could make the argument that the easier path
to avoid litigation is to write down the liquidation preference
rather than convert them to common But I think either way,
you know, there's going to be uncertainty.
Speaker 4 (18:47):
I think as a you know, if I'm trying to think,
is like a new money investor here, you know, the
Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund or uh, you know, perchure halfways
of the world that the administration might call on to
purchase new equity in the companies. I don't think I'm
so concerned with litigation from a wiped out class of
(19:08):
shareholders who have lost at every turn for seventeen years
and are now suing the federal government. I don't think
that's an overhang on my new equity in these companies,
which are heavily subsidized by the federal government, and with
the right circumstances, you know, very profitable and interesting businesses
(19:29):
to invest in with a lot of capital. Right so,
this is an investment that you can make at scale.
For TRASTWA has what like three hundred billion dollars in
cash right now, and I think at the right IPO price,
that could be an interesting way for them to deploy
some of that. Right So, I don't think that they're
they're gonna scoff at at wiping out the existing shareholders.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
I don't think that'll give them cold feet at all.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Yep, you might. You might be right, and we shall see.
I mean, it's it's really clear at this point what
the administration is planning to do, because they just have
not given us anything.
Speaker 4 (20:05):
They're still planning to have a plan right at the
concept of a plan nine years in basically, and still
we haven't seen anything concrete. And Treasure Secretary Best since
that they would hire bankers in the September October timeframe,
so we have fifteen days to hear that news, and
I wouldn't be surprised if that slips a little bit.
(20:26):
But remember they hired bankers back in twenty twenty and
that didn't mean anything at the end. So there's a
lot of work to we've done here and a lot
of potential for the timing to slip.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
I feel like we need to have Mark Collabria back
on the podcast. We had him last years. He's working
at omb now, so I don't know if he's at
Liberty to come back.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
On the Stakeholder now, so probably less.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Yeah, if you're out there, Mark listening, we'd love to
have you back, all right, Ben, good stuff. Holly from
Let's Bring You In Holly covers litigation and the consumer
and austrial sector for US A couple of cases I
wanted to talk about. First, Holly Tesla. You know, this
issue with Elon Musk's fifty six billion dollar pay package,
(21:12):
which the lower courts in Delaware invalidated, essentially, was argued
before the Delaware Supreme Court yesterday. I believe, and you
listen to it, and you put out a deck today,
and from the headline that you put out, it sounds
like you think that pay package will be restored. You
want to tell us you're thinking, yeah, I think it'll
be restored.
Speaker 5 (21:32):
I mean, it's very close, and it was very hard
to tell which way the court was leaning from the
oral argument, But basically what happened was the shareholder sued
and said that the shareholder vote to approve his pay
package must pay package wasn't informed. They weren't informed, for example,
that the board members were beholden to Musk. And though
the lower court said she didn't find that Musk was
a controlling share her decision wasn't dependent on a finding
(21:56):
that he was a controlling shareholder because he only held
I think it was twenty percent of the stock. But
much of her discussion in her decision invalidating a pay
package was about his oversized influence over the transaction in
which the board members approved his pay package. So, as
I said, I don't think it's clear which way the
(22:16):
judges were leaning from oral argument. There was one judge,
Judge LaGrow, who seemed very vocal in her skepticism of
the lower court's ruling. And one of the things she said, well,
one of the things she asked plain if was and
Defense Council actually was if any other court had invalidated
pay package where the person awarded the package met every milestone.
(22:38):
And I don't think there was any There was no
case exactly on point. There was a case where a
bonus was invalidated, but that's different from compensation for services
already rectured. So in terms of the other judges, though,
it seemed like two judges were concerned about ten arguments
(23:00):
that that Tesla raised on appeal that weren't raised below,
and so there was a question about whether they waived
those arguments. But as I said, as you mentioned, and
as I put on the article I put out today,
I think the award will will be restored because I
think that the court is going to find the paypackage
(23:23):
entirely fair. And what that means is that in a
situation where the shareholders are not fully informed, the company
has to show that the deal was entirely fair. And
that's hard to meet. But here must in order to
get the fifty six billion dollars, must had to grow
the company by six hundred billion dollars. And so I
don't think that that's you know, very easy to do.
(23:43):
And given the difficulties, I think that it will find
that the deal was entirely fair.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
So, but did he have to meet that condition to
grow it by that much? And he did, right, I mean,
I believe it he did.
Speaker 5 (23:56):
He grew up by more. Actually, so he had to
meet that condition in order to get full pay package.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Yes, and that didn't they in the interim while this
litigation has been playing out, give him another pay package
that's sort of you know, conditional on this pay package.
You know, if this pay pay the original pay package
is struck down, then he gets this other one.
Speaker 5 (24:17):
Yes, they did do that. And you know what else
they did was that they they put this the same
package to the shareholders after the court, after the court
rendered a decision, and before after the trial was held,
they put the same package to the to the to
a shareholder vote, seventy two percent approved it the second time.
(24:40):
The first time, seventy three percent approved it. So it's
almost exactly the same. And what they argued was this
post trial ratification or post trial shareholder vote ratified you know,
the pay package. And so you know, what I've said
about that is that if the court says that the
deal that you know, entire fairness applies, and that the
(25:02):
deal was not entirely fair, I don't think the post
shareholder vote, uh, would you know, prevail? Because I don't
think that the Delaware courts want companies like vitiating court
decisions or invalidating court decisions after they're rendered by you know,
doing these sort of things. So that's what I've said
(25:25):
about that.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Interesting, all right? Do you the other case? I wanted
to ask you about what concerns Buyer, the German healthcare
and I guess now also agricultural company because it owns Monsanto.
You following litigation against Buyer by consumers who allied that
they developed non Hodgkin's lymphoma from exposure to Monsanto's Roundup
(25:48):
weed killer. That case is well, Buyers asking the Supreme
Court for to review a verdict against the company, and
I guess it's still pending. Do you want to tell
us where that stands and what you're looking out for.
Speaker 5 (26:03):
Yes. So what happened was the it's Monstanto unit asked
the Supreme Court to review one point two five one
one million dollar verdict out of Missouri against the company,
and they asked the Supreme Court to review it. That
case was I think that case, the jury verdict was
(26:25):
solely on uh, the failure to warren claim. So what
they've said is that this state law failure to warren
claim is preempted by federal law because federal pesticide law
requires the EPA to approve the label and the product
cannot be misbranded. And what the what Monstanta was arguing
is that because the e PA repeatedly register the product
(26:50):
and to do that they have to find its non
carcinogenic to put a warning on it as that, as
you know, these juries are requiring them to do, would
make the product is branded, and that's a violation of
federal law. You can't have a misbranded pesta side product.
That's right in the federal Pesta side law. So monstanto.
So they made this argument two years ago or three
(27:12):
years ago in twenty twenty two to the Supreme Court
again and the Supreme Court rejected the case. They didn't
take the case. But and that was that was an
appeal from Ninth Circuit ruling that said the claims aren't preempted.
But this time there's a circuit split. So what happened
is the Ninth Circuit and the Eleventh Circuit has said
the disclaim is not preempted, but the Third Circuit issued
(27:37):
a ruling saying that it is preempted. So there's a
circuit split, which means that the Supreme Court is likely
here to take the case. And the other thing that
happened is that the Supreme Court asked the Solicitor General
for its you, its recommendation as to whether it should
take the case. And usually that means that port justices
are at least interested in the case. So but you know,
(27:59):
the vast majority of times the Supreme Court will listen
to the Solicitor General's recommendation. So the so the Solicitor General,
I'm expecting it's it's a recommendation in November or December, and.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
You expect them to recommend that the Supreme Court take
the case.
Speaker 5 (28:19):
I mean, I think it's dicey, but I think they're
likelier to recommend than the Flitter General under the Biden administration.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
So did they take They did? They?
Speaker 5 (28:31):
They did so the flicter of General. So the Supreme
Court again in twenty twenty two, asked the solicitor down
you that was under the Biden administration. They said, don't
take the case, and they didn't.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Ah, okay, So we'll see if the Trump administration takes
a different stance. All right, Cool, So you're expecting that
when when? When's that too?
Speaker 5 (28:48):
November or well, I'm expecting in November or December?
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Got it? Okay, Well, we will stay tuned for that,
all right. In the interest of time, I think we're
gonna have to leave it there. Thanks Holly, Thanks thanks Nathan,
and thank you to the listener as always for listening
to this episode of Votes and Verdicts. If you have
any questions about any of the matters we discussed on
this episode, please don't hesitate to reach out to us
(29:12):
at your convenience. As a reminder, you can find all
of our research on the Bloomberg terminal at Big you
can find our litigation and policy research on bi laws
go and we want to thank our producer Aditya Somani,
without whom this podcast would never publish on time. Thank
you again for listening and have a great day.
Hello, and welcome to the Votes and Verdicts podcast, hosted
by the Litigation and Policy team at Bloomberg Intelligence, the
investment research platform of Bloomberg LP on the Bloomberg Terminal.
Bloomberg Intelligence has five hundred analysts and strategists working across
the globe and focused on all major markets. Our coverage
includes over two thousand equities and credits, and we have
(00:38):
outlooks on more than ninety industries and one hundred market industries,
currencies and commodities. This podcast series examines the intersection of
business policy and law, and today is our weekly look
at the litigation and policy catalysts that we're watching and
that we think will impact companies across a number of
different sectors. My name is Ali, It's dying. I'm an
(01:00):
analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence covering litigation in the financial sector,
and I'm delighted as always today to be joined by
a handful of my BI colleagues. As always, you can
find all of our research on the Bloomberg terminal at
BI go, and you can find most of our litigation
and policy research on our dashboard, which is available on
(01:21):
the terminal at BI laws go. Just to timestamp this
since things move quickly. It is Thursday, October sixteenth, twenty
twenty five. It is two thirty two pm in New York.
And with that, let me bring in Nathan Dean, who's
our chief policy analyst down in DC. Nathan, you're wearing
(01:43):
a tie. You didn't have to put that on for me.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Ah, No, it's you know, it's IMF week. Yep, we've
got to spirits it up from IMF World Bank Week.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Sounds good. So, Nathan, what are we in? I guess
it's day sixteen of the shutdown, right.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Yep, so day sixteen. And according to Polymarket, just as
of about three minutes ago, the majority of people, at
a majority of thirty two percent think that this government
shutdown is going to go beyond November fifteenth.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
So another month, yeah, okay, another month a majority or
thirty two percent.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
I didn't catch that, sorry, thirty two sorry, thirty two
percent majority think more than fifty percent think this is
going into November, okay. And I have no reason why
to dissuade them from that, because here we are on
October sixteenth. Neither side is talking to each other, neither
(02:34):
side feels that they are in a position where they
are being hurt politically from this, and President Trump is
removing a lot of the pressure points that normally would
bring Congress together to come up with a solution. October fifteenth, yesterday,
there was the day that the military was going to
miss a paycheck. President Trump reallocated around sixty eight billion
dollars of already existing funds to pay the military. Next
(02:56):
military paycheck is October twenty ninth. Whether or not they
have the money to do that, then nobody really knows.
But President Trump is also just trying to alleviate these
pressure points so that they can get just back to
this idea of let's just have a debate and let's
just try and see which party blinks first. So which
party blinks first? I can't really tell you. The Democrats
(03:17):
are looking at polling data that suggests that independents are
blaming us slightly better than republic or slightly more Republicans
than Democrats for this, They're feeling decent. Democrats are looking
at polling data or sorry, Republicans are looking at polling
data that suggests that the base is quite content with
their strategy. They're feeling pretty good. When the director of
the O and B russ vote lays off four thousand
(03:38):
workers like he did last Friday. Obviously we saw court
challenges to that, but it just really pushes the Democrats
into their shell and hardens their resolve. So the way
I think this ends is probably a couple of things.
One the November first pressure points. If the military pay
can be resolved, November first is when Obamacare subsidies ACA
and enrollment goes up. Sorry, ACAA enrollment starts, and the premiums,
(04:03):
the increased premiums will be communicated out to those who
are enrolling. The Democrats may say at that point, look,
you know, now that we know how much money this
is going to go up, let to reopen the government
and say to the Republicans, Okay, what are you guys
going to do? But I would also just say, in
terms of snap benefits, that's also November first. Snap benefits
(04:23):
also known as food stamps. They've been allocated for October,
they've been appropriated for October, they have not been allocated
or appropriated for November. Forty two million Americans utilize food stamps.
Now there is possible the USDA could reissue other funds.
We haven't really looked into it all that much. But again,
that could be a match to the pressure point if
it goes into November Thanksgiving travel, holiday travel, chaos at
(04:47):
the airports, that could be a pressure point. So long
witted waves just saying we have to stay tuned.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Yeah, and it sounds like November has several possible inflection points,
see there, like the first of the month or closer
to Thanksgiving. All right, so we'll keep watching that. Let's
talk crypto for a couple of minutes, Nathan. The Genius
Act on stable coins that was obviously passed, I don't
(05:16):
know a few months ago, but it sounds like at
least the banks in particular want to make some tweaks
to it because of loopholes concerning you know, rewards programs
that may get around the ban on you know, being
able to collect interest.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Yeah, exactly, I mean, and this is coming up as
part of the negotiations over the Clarity Act and the
Responsible Innovation Financial Responsible Financial Innovation Act of the r
f i A. Now, what the bank's here is they
want to close the loophole, or at least extend the
loophole so that stable coin issuers currently under the Genius
Act can't paign interest or yield on their stable coins.
(05:54):
But there's nothing in there that prohibits platforms like coinbase
from offering rewards. And I know this is an audio
only podcast, but I said rewards in air quotes. You know,
there's nothing that prevents third parties from paying rewards again
air quotes. But what I will say here is that
the banks are now pushing for that loophole to be
(06:16):
extended so that people can't pay for these rewards, and
the crypto industry, as you can imagine, is pushing back
pretty hard. Now it's too early to tell which side
will win or lose. The way I like in it
is to my children fighting. I love both my children,
and when they fight, I can't pick a winner or loser.
I just want them to stop.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
And I was winning for you to say love in
the air quotes.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
But you know, when it comes to the crypto lobby,
you have a very very powerful lobbying apparatus. When you
have the banking lobby, you have a very very powerful
lobbying apparatus. And what happens when one very powerful lobbying
apparat goes up against one very powerful lobbying apparatus. The
policymaker essentially looks at both of their children and say,
I love you both, go away. I want to watch football.
(07:00):
And I think that's what's going to happen here, is
is that the banks are going to push for this
loophole to be extended. The crypto folks are going to
say no, and if they have any chance of getting
a deal, I think the policy makers are just going
to say, I choose the status quote do nothing like.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
This legislation was passed not that long ago, right, it
was I don't know, three months ago, and you know
they're already trying to make changes. It just seems very
odd to me.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Yeah, and very very abnormal because they usually don't have
fixes to this magnitude so quickly after such a deal.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Right.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
But you know, this is just the This is step
one of the thousand step fight between traditional finance and
crypto ye that we're going to see play out over
the next few years because crypto has an extremely powerful
lobbying apparatus and it's not going away, yep.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
And they have a lot of friends in the administration
as well. All right, sticking with crypto, but just talking
about the broader Market Structure bill, what's going on with
the Clarity Act. I feel like we haven't heard much
about it. Is it sort of just stagnant.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Yeah, you haven't heard much about it because there's disagreements
over on the Senate site. The House has already passed
Clarity and that's where Clarity is going to stay. The
Senate is working on their Responsible Financial Innovation Act, and
there's two portions to that. It's the Senate Banking Portion
in the Senate AGG portion. The Senate Banking portion is out.
This deals with securities and this deals with you know,
(08:22):
the jurisdiction of the sec The Senate ag portion was
supposed to be out in the month of September. It didn't.
We're still waiting it and it most likely won't be
out while the government is shut down because some staffers
are essential, some staffers aren't, and so you know, each
member of Congress gets the deceme teams who's essential or not,
So you know, there could be some crypto staffers that
(08:44):
are sitting at home. There could be other crypto staffers,
you know, working in the office. So we're not going
to get really much of a bill from the Senate
AGG portion anytime soon. But the problem is is that
over the Senate Banking Committee. The Democrats aren't exactly thrilled
with how the Republicans are pursuing this bill. At the moment,
I think there are enough Democrats that could come on
(09:05):
board with a bill. But the process is playing out
right now is the Republicans are writing the legislation and
they're sending it to the Dems and they're saying, Okay,
here's what it is. The Democrats are essentially saying, no,
we want to have a little bit more insight into
this as you're trying to compile what the language is.
Because the traditional finance folks are coming in here and
saying we don't like a lot of this, and when
(09:27):
the very powerful banking opparatus comes in, even on the
Democratic side, it causes these policy makers to hit pause.
So I think where it goes is that when the
government reopens, and let's just call it November, they'll probably
need about two to three months to get back to work.
But I don't think that delays my overall time frame
of first half of next year. So you know, we'll
see when the language comes out, but I think I
(09:49):
think they can get there.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Okay, all right, we will. We'll keep watching that all right,
thanks Nathan. Let's stick with DC and bring in Ben Elliott. Ben.
How you doing?
Speaker 3 (10:01):
Yeah? How are you?
Speaker 1 (10:02):
I'm doing well. So Ben covers Fanny May and Freddie Mack.
I cover the litigation for Fanny and Freddie. So there's
often confusion because Ben's last name is the same as
my first name. Sometimes clients think we're the same person.
We are not. We're in two different locations today. We
are two separate people. But Ben, over the weekend, FHFA
(10:22):
director that's the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the conservator and
regulator for Fanny and Freddie. The director Bill Poulty tweeted
this out quotes real quotes important for anyone interested in
Fannie May, and most of that was in all caps
except for Fannie May. Please read the full risk sections
that Fannie May has listed in their ten k end quotes.
(10:46):
He then tweeted a similar tweet the next day, But
you know, switched fan of May for Freddie Mack. And
then I think that was sort of it in terms
of what he was saying about about this issue. But
you know, you sent that to me over the weekend, Well,
(11:06):
you know, what do you make of those tweets? You
put out a react two days ago saying, Fanny Freddie
investors finally seeing dilution risk because you did see some
movement in the market, and so that was your reaction
to it. So sort of tell us you're thinking about all.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
This, sonny. Looking at the chart of the Bloomerg terminal
of their share price, they never got above two dollars
during the Biden administration, and they peeked around fourteen or
sixteen dollars and they've come down about twenty five percent
essentially since Bill Boldi tweeted those two tweets. And if
(11:44):
you if you look at what he linked investors do,
it's a very scary.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Section of disclosures. Well, it's a lot in there, right,
I mean it's multiple pages.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
There's a lot in there.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
And right up at the top, the number one risk
essentially says that no one has any no one is
in any way beholden or responsible to people who are
buying the common stock of these companies. The board has
no fiduciary duty. The companies are controlled by f h
(12:15):
f A treasury owns the companies essentially in their entirety
by virtue of owning the senior preferred chairs and and
and basically what you can interpreted from that is that
if there's any value left over whatsoever from a recapitalization transaction,
that'll be basically at the discretion of Treasury.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
And and so I think people were really taken aback
by this.
Speaker 4 (12:41):
POLTI has been out there tweeting a lot of very bullish,
optimistic things. There was a news report that linked the
President Trump's tweet about a combined mortgage company two actually,
so that that was something that he had sort of
(13:02):
been driving. And it makes you sort of ask the question,
what does this mean? Where are they going with this?
Do they have a plan? And I think it's really
not clear to investors, and I think that's kind of
what explains the price action we've seen the last couple
of days.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
And a lot of this goes to what is gonna
you know, if they do sort of try to get
these companies out of conservativeship have some sort of offering,
as they've hinted at many times, both the President and Pulty.
I think that what are they going to do with
Treasury's senior preferred shares? Right? And there's I guess two
(13:38):
most likely possibilities. One is that they just write down
treasuries liquidation preference essentially, which is like three hundred and
fifty billion dollars worth and just forgives it, or they
convert those shares to common stock and there and thereby
dilute the current common shareholders. And I guess concern that
(14:01):
the marketers may be reflecting is that these tweets by
POLTI are warning people that, you know, conversion may be
the more likely packed and you've been you've been saying
that you think that's the more likely path. You want
to sort of explain your thinking on that.
Speaker 4 (14:19):
Yeah, what has to ask oneself? Why would the FHFA
director who's so optimistic about these companies suddenly I feel
the heed to point investors to a risk section that
is primarily focused on on the dilution risk of the
common stoff. My interpretation of that is that something was
communicated to FHFA, either from Treasury or elsewhere, that there's
(14:46):
quite a lot of precedent, and you're the legal expert here,
so way.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
I mean, that's not get too far overboard, but the weeds.
Speaker 4 (14:54):
But you know, these shareholders have been fighting an uphill
battle against this for for almost two decades and basically
at every turn they've lost until recently.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
If you want to mention that a little bit, yeah,
I mean, well.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
I don't know. If you want to finish your thought,
then I can jump in.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:09):
But so so essentially, there's there's no practical reason why
Treasury would write down their senior preferred stock. Some people
argue it might improve the valuation, it might make future
investors somehow feel better about the companies, but all the
economic damage has been done. The network sweep is in
(15:29):
the past. The earnings have been taken by Treasury, and
and they are contractually, you know, they're rightful owners of
those earnings in the form of liquidation preference. And and
keep in mind that that change was done under the
Trump administration. Treasury Secretary Manution, who, if you sort of
(15:52):
take former FHFA director Mark Colabri at his word, basically
kind of got cold feet at the end of his term,
instead of trying to move forward with release in some
form or fashion, invented this new mechanic where the companies
would retain earnings, but it would accrue to Treasury as
a higher liquidation problems. So there's no reason for them
to about face at this point. And say, you know,
(16:14):
we don't want this three hundred and fifty billion dollars anymore.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Except that some of their very prominent supporters do want
that outcome, and I'm talking about bi Lack in particular,
for instance.
Speaker 4 (16:26):
Except that we want to we want to improve Persian
Square's performance this year and basically give away twenty percent
of the economic value of the companies man essentially what
it would amount to the exchange.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
One could also make the argumentation, and this is what
you were prompting me to jump in with earlier, that
you know, in terms of potential litigation over whatever the
government does here, because everything they do so far has
been litigated. You know, if if they do convert to
common and dilute those shares, you could see, you know
(17:03):
that that would be an impetus for common stock shareholders
to sue. I don't know, you know, it's unclear what
exactly that claim would be. It could potentially be something
like a breach of the implied covenant of good faith
and fair deal in meaning that you know, the government
sort of breached the reasonable investment expectations of the shareholders,
(17:24):
which is the only claim that has succeeded among the
decade of litigation that Fanny and Freddie investors have brought
against the government, and they got a jury verdict in
a case just a couple of years ago on that
claim that's on appeal. You know, there's a possibility that
it could be reversed because you know, the Supreme Court
(17:46):
in another case said that FHFA really has a ton
of discretion here to do what it wants to do
with with the companies. So you know, it's not clear
that such a claim would SUCs Seed, but it could linger,
which could slow things down. Whereas if they if the
(18:06):
Treasury Department wrote off its senior preferred shares, there's legal
issues there too, right it because Treasury can't can't just
do that. And part of the reason Calabria said Treasury
got cold feet was because the lawyers said that they
didn't think they could just write right down uh, their
their ownership stake. But you know, I'm not sure who
(18:28):
would have standing to sue if the Treasury did do that.
So you could make the argument that the easier path
to avoid litigation is to write down the liquidation preference
rather than convert them to common But I think either way,
you know, there's going to be uncertainty.
Speaker 4 (18:47):
I think as a you know, if I'm trying to think,
is like a new money investor here, you know, the
Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund or uh, you know, perchure halfways
of the world that the administration might call on to
purchase new equity in the companies. I don't think I'm
so concerned with litigation from a wiped out class of
(19:08):
shareholders who have lost at every turn for seventeen years
and are now suing the federal government. I don't think
that's an overhang on my new equity in these companies,
which are heavily subsidized by the federal government, and with
the right circumstances, you know, very profitable and interesting businesses
(19:29):
to invest in with a lot of capital. Right so,
this is an investment that you can make at scale.
For TRASTWA has what like three hundred billion dollars in
cash right now, and I think at the right IPO price,
that could be an interesting way for them to deploy
some of that. Right So, I don't think that they're
they're gonna scoff at at wiping out the existing shareholders.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
I don't think that'll give them cold feet at all.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Yep, you might. You might be right, and we shall see.
I mean, it's it's really clear at this point what
the administration is planning to do, because they just have
not given us anything.
Speaker 4 (20:05):
They're still planning to have a plan right at the
concept of a plan nine years in basically, and still
we haven't seen anything concrete. And Treasure Secretary Best since
that they would hire bankers in the September October timeframe,
so we have fifteen days to hear that news, and
I wouldn't be surprised if that slips a little bit.
(20:26):
But remember they hired bankers back in twenty twenty and
that didn't mean anything at the end. So there's a
lot of work to we've done here and a lot
of potential for the timing to slip.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
I feel like we need to have Mark Collabria back
on the podcast. We had him last years. He's working
at omb now, so I don't know if he's at
Liberty to come back.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
On the Stakeholder now, so probably less.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Yeah, if you're out there, Mark listening, we'd love to
have you back, all right, Ben, good stuff. Holly from
Let's Bring You In Holly covers litigation and the consumer
and austrial sector for US A couple of cases I
wanted to talk about. First, Holly Tesla. You know, this
issue with Elon Musk's fifty six billion dollar pay package,
(21:12):
which the lower courts in Delaware invalidated, essentially, was argued
before the Delaware Supreme Court yesterday. I believe, and you
listen to it, and you put out a deck today,
and from the headline that you put out, it sounds
like you think that pay package will be restored. You
want to tell us you're thinking, yeah, I think it'll
be restored.
Speaker 5 (21:32):
I mean, it's very close, and it was very hard
to tell which way the court was leaning from the
oral argument, But basically what happened was the shareholder sued
and said that the shareholder vote to approve his pay
package must pay package wasn't informed. They weren't informed, for example,
that the board members were beholden to Musk. And though
the lower court said she didn't find that Musk was
a controlling share her decision wasn't dependent on a finding
(21:56):
that he was a controlling shareholder because he only held
I think it was twenty percent of the stock. But
much of her discussion in her decision invalidating a pay
package was about his oversized influence over the transaction in
which the board members approved his pay package. So, as
I said, I don't think it's clear which way the
(22:16):
judges were leaning from oral argument. There was one judge,
Judge LaGrow, who seemed very vocal in her skepticism of
the lower court's ruling. And one of the things she said, well,
one of the things she asked plain if was and
Defense Council actually was if any other court had invalidated
pay package where the person awarded the package met every milestone.
(22:38):
And I don't think there was any There was no
case exactly on point. There was a case where a
bonus was invalidated, but that's different from compensation for services
already rectured. So in terms of the other judges, though,
it seemed like two judges were concerned about ten arguments
(23:00):
that that Tesla raised on appeal that weren't raised below,
and so there was a question about whether they waived
those arguments. But as I said, as you mentioned, and
as I put on the article I put out today,
I think the award will will be restored because I
think that the court is going to find the paypackage
(23:23):
entirely fair. And what that means is that in a
situation where the shareholders are not fully informed, the company
has to show that the deal was entirely fair. And
that's hard to meet. But here must in order to
get the fifty six billion dollars, must had to grow
the company by six hundred billion dollars. And so I
don't think that that's you know, very easy to do.
(23:43):
And given the difficulties, I think that it will find
that the deal was entirely fair.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
So, but did he have to meet that condition to
grow it by that much? And he did, right, I mean,
I believe it he did.
Speaker 5 (23:56):
He grew up by more. Actually, so he had to
meet that condition in order to get full pay package.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Yes, and that didn't they in the interim while this
litigation has been playing out, give him another pay package
that's sort of you know, conditional on this pay package.
You know, if this pay pay the original pay package
is struck down, then he gets this other one.
Speaker 5 (24:17):
Yes, they did do that. And you know what else
they did was that they they put this the same
package to the shareholders after the court, after the court
rendered a decision, and before after the trial was held,
they put the same package to the to the to
a shareholder vote, seventy two percent approved it the second time.
(24:40):
The first time, seventy three percent approved it. So it's
almost exactly the same. And what they argued was this
post trial ratification or post trial shareholder vote ratified you know,
the pay package. And so you know, what I've said
about that is that if the court says that the
deal that you know, entire fairness applies, and that the
(25:02):
deal was not entirely fair, I don't think the post
shareholder vote, uh, would you know, prevail? Because I don't
think that the Delaware courts want companies like vitiating court
decisions or invalidating court decisions after they're rendered by you know,
doing these sort of things. So that's what I've said
(25:25):
about that.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Interesting, all right? Do you the other case? I wanted
to ask you about what concerns Buyer, the German healthcare
and I guess now also agricultural company because it owns Monsanto.
You following litigation against Buyer by consumers who allied that
they developed non Hodgkin's lymphoma from exposure to Monsanto's Roundup
(25:48):
weed killer. That case is well, Buyers asking the Supreme
Court for to review a verdict against the company, and
I guess it's still pending. Do you want to tell
us where that stands and what you're looking out for.
Speaker 5 (26:03):
Yes. So what happened was the it's Monstanto unit asked
the Supreme Court to review one point two five one
one million dollar verdict out of Missouri against the company,
and they asked the Supreme Court to review it. That
case was I think that case, the jury verdict was
(26:25):
solely on uh, the failure to warren claim. So what
they've said is that this state law failure to warren
claim is preempted by federal law because federal pesticide law
requires the EPA to approve the label and the product
cannot be misbranded. And what the what Monstanta was arguing
is that because the e PA repeatedly register the product
(26:50):
and to do that they have to find its non
carcinogenic to put a warning on it as that, as
you know, these juries are requiring them to do, would
make the product is branded, and that's a violation of
federal law. You can't have a misbranded pesta side product.
That's right in the federal Pesta side law. So monstanto.
So they made this argument two years ago or three
(27:12):
years ago in twenty twenty two to the Supreme Court
again and the Supreme Court rejected the case. They didn't
take the case. But and that was that was an
appeal from Ninth Circuit ruling that said the claims aren't preempted.
But this time there's a circuit split. So what happened
is the Ninth Circuit and the Eleventh Circuit has said
the disclaim is not preempted, but the Third Circuit issued
(27:37):
a ruling saying that it is preempted. So there's a
circuit split, which means that the Supreme Court is likely
here to take the case. And the other thing that
happened is that the Supreme Court asked the Solicitor General
for its you, its recommendation as to whether it should
take the case. And usually that means that port justices
are at least interested in the case. So but you know,
(27:59):
the vast majority of times the Supreme Court will listen
to the Solicitor General's recommendation. So the so the Solicitor General,
I'm expecting it's it's a recommendation in November or December, and.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
You expect them to recommend that the Supreme Court take
the case.
Speaker 5 (28:19):
I mean, I think it's dicey, but I think they're
likelier to recommend than the Flitter General under the Biden administration.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
So did they take They did? They?
Speaker 5 (28:31):
They did so the flicter of General. So the Supreme
Court again in twenty twenty two, asked the solicitor down
you that was under the Biden administration. They said, don't
take the case, and they didn't.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Ah, okay, So we'll see if the Trump administration takes
a different stance. All right, Cool, So you're expecting that
when when? When's that too?
Speaker 5 (28:48):
November or well, I'm expecting in November or December?
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Got it? Okay, Well, we will stay tuned for that,
all right. In the interest of time, I think we're
gonna have to leave it there. Thanks Holly, Thanks thanks Nathan,
and thank you to the listener as always for listening
to this episode of Votes and Verdicts. If you have
any questions about any of the matters we discussed on
this episode, please don't hesitate to reach out to us
(29:12):
at your convenience. As a reminder, you can find all
of our research on the Bloomberg terminal at Big you
can find our litigation and policy research on bi laws
go and we want to thank our producer Aditya Somani,
without whom this podcast would never publish on time. Thank
you again for listening and have a great day.
Host
Elliott Stein
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