that said, if it is accurately-reported
that Qwest, under Nacchio, had differing
internal v. external estimates -- nacchio may well lose.

the law has evolved to the point where
judges (to say nothing of the SEC!) are
deeply disapproving of one set of numbers
for "the street", and another set, for "inside" the company.

that alone could tank the presumption of
"good faith; reasonable when made" non-
action-ablility for projected, or soft, for-
ward-looking information. . .

it amounts to a declaration, by the court,
that nacchio could not, per force, have
reasonably believed his own projections, if
he used differing ones, internally.

finally, the dates of trading really
do him no favors -- he could have restricted
his trading to less that the 10b-5(1) planned
amounts he had earlier agreed to, but my under-
standing is that his trade volumes EXCEEDED
his own pre-approved plan. imprtantly, at the time
he engaged in these larger-than-planned trades,
he had not disclosed what he knew about the
increasingly-softening projections.

without the context of the "govt. retaliation"
for failing to disobey the law (the proffered
REASON that his projections did not materialize):
i.e., that the govt. cancelled the contracts. . .

it is hard to see how he can win.

but -- simply because i typed that. . .
he probably will.

win.

great stuff, here, j.

i'm inclined to agree with rainnn; if the internal & external #'s were materially different, nacchio pretty much cut his own throat, with his own calculator.

it would be one thing to take a conservative position, for public consumption, and an optimistic position, for internal purposes, and sell, based on that. it's another thing entirely to do the exact opposite.