A federal jury in Boston could begin deliberations as early as Thursday on whether Wall Street banking giant Goldman Sachs Group Inc was liable for the botched acquisition of speech recognition software company Dragon Systems in 2000. Dragon's founders have accused Goldman of being negligent after Belgium-based Lernout & Hauspie paid $580 million in stock for Dragon and then went bankrupt.It wasn't the job of Goldman bankers to sniff out the accounting fraud that ultimately doomed Lernout & Hauspie and made the stock received by Dragon founders Jim and Janet Baker worthless, defense attorneys have argued.The Bakers owned 51 percent of the company but only were able to sell a few million dollars worth of L&H stock before the company collapsed in an accounting fraud. The Bakers and two other early Dragon employees are seeking several hundred million dollars in damages.U.S. District Judge Patti Saris on Tuesday told jurors they could begin their deliberations as early as Thursday after hearing closing arguments and getting her instructions on the law in the case. Tuesday marked the trial's 18th day of testimony.
The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (Goldman Sachs) is a global investment banking, securities and investment management firm that provides a range of financial services to a substantial and diversified client base that includes corporations, financial institutions, governments and high-net-worth individuals. Shares of GS traded higher by 0.26% or $0.36/share to $136.49. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $90.43 and as high as $138.15. On average, 4172430 shares of GS exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 2490868.
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