Regency Stamp Auctions In St. Louis

This thread started 2.5 years ago. Amazing.

Too bad the plaintiffs don't have a right to see a speedy trial. I see stalling tactics in play here

I do not think that I would to try to play the 'stall card' with a bank in a civil suit, they certainly have deeper pockets and more legal resources. Civil suits are a rich man's game, and a bank has a lot of riches.

I assume the bank is the largest creditor and gets first dibs on any settlement monies (if there is any money to be had). I am a but unsure why the rest of us care about how this comes to fruition, it is not like anyone else who had loaned them money (i.e. consigned material) is going to see any of it.
Don

The court case I am following is the one with the female consigner that never received her $167,000 check. I am curious if she prevails.

I am unsure how multiple civil cases get handled (combine them?), perhaps one of our lawyers can weigh in. I would guess that those owed the greatest get the most, again assuming that there is any money to be had.
Don

Multiple civil cases are not ordinarily "consolidated" for trial unless the underlying facts and relevant legal issues are the same. They could be assigned to the same judge for efficiency but with different trial dates. When cases are not consolidated, the first party to reach trial has priority, unless there is a superseding legal right such as the security interest of a bank.

2.5 years from filing to trial is not unusual. Civil cases always take lower priority because criminal defendants have a Constitutional right to a speedy trial and civil plaintiffs and defendants don't. Usually the state courts are just clogged with felony criminal cases.

I am more interested in the backstory. More than one person know what was going on but like many things the full story will not come out because of politics.

For me and until/unless someone can prove fraud or some other crime, this is simply a story of a business struggling, digging the debt hole deeper, and then ultimately failing. No conspiracies but something that happens every day across the world. Being a bad businessman or making bad business decisions is not typically a crime (unless fraud is involved). It seems unlikely to me that anyone setup Regency with the intent to ripoff unsuspecting people and instead was a legitimate, albeit failed, attempt at a profitable company.

Of course this is not any help to those who lost money.

Sending your stamps to any organization or company has risk, you are basically loaning them your property. It does not matter if you are sending a stamp in for a cert, sending an collection in on consignment, fronting your bother-in-law some cash, or loaning your neighbor a tool from your garage. You are assuming risk and the level of risk depends upon the quality, health, and insurance of the people you are dealing with.


Don

I never said there was a conspiracy to defraud as a business goal but the story on the business failure of a firm where the owner who was just added to ASDA Hall of Fame may be worth understanding. The concern is about wanting to avoid negativity - nothing to see see here, move along.

I'm not au fait with US company law, but, in the UK, "wrongful" and "fraudulent" trading are civil and criminal offences respectively. Regency's behaviour sounds rather more like the first, than the second, which carries a concept of intent to defraud. No consolation to the victims of what appears to be reckless financial (mis)management.

Geoff: Correction: Not RASDALE but rather REGENCY SUPERIOR.

Edit: I see that you corrected it.

'
The word "mismanagement" can be a bit of a "misnomer".

"Shut the front door at the first sign of trouble" is hardly a practical business strategy, and all of the bets you make that do not pay off (a/k/a all of your earnest efforts to save the business) will all look like dumb-to-stupid decisions in the rear-view mirror.

Yeah, Regency failed; if you did not personally lose money, get over it.

And, on behalf of the non-attorneys, let me mention two things that can, to an outsider, look a lot like consolidation of civil suits.

The first is the class action suit, in which plaintiffs who consigned goods to Regency and did not get paid could try to get certified as a class. This may or may not be possible or advisable in this case; I can guarantee that I do not know. But that kinda looks like civil suit consolidation.

The second is bankruptcy court, in which creditors' claims are adjudicated in a single, broad action. I do not know if a creditor with a specific claim on a specific asset is able to proceed separately, as the very task of the bankruptcy court is to sort-out the varied claims of lenders & bondholders & stockholders & unpaid suppliers (etc). This, too, to an outsider, also kinda looks like civil suit consolidation.

I understand that 'civil suit consolidation' will have its own precise meaning under law(s), but the term might be understood more loosely here on the outside.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

Seriously? So if you weren't directly affected, never mind the damage it has done to people's confidence in auction houses in general?

The full story may or may not come out, depending on how the court rules. Sometime court decisions require s that the parties are not to reveal information. It's a way to get everyone to agree to a settlement, not "because of politics" which is not a very effective explanation since it sweeps everything, in this case a court case, under whatever "politics" is supposed to mean. The high level of cynicism today about everything turns too often into a muddled denunciation of "politics" as if people like us and our neighbors weren't voting these people into office. What it usually amounts to is "I don't like the people other people elected." If you're upset with whatever "politics" is, vote for someone else. If you're upset with the court system, blame the people who appointed, or voted for, the judge. Don't denounce the entire political system.

As demonstrated by what, exactly?

The serial collapse of other auction houses, a la Lehman Brothers 2008?

The sudden absence of all that better material being withheld from the market?

The secular rise of alternative sales venues?

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey