Family Fighting Coca-cola For $130million

[Faline]

A California family claims it is owed a $130million stake in Coca-Cola Co after their father bought an antique stock certificate in 2008 for a mere $5.
Tony Marohn spent the final year of his life battling the beverage company after tracing the Palmer Union Oil Co certificate to Coca-Cola.
Marohn died in 2010, but his family has taken on the legal battle, saying it is entitled to about 1.8million shares of the soft-drink maker.



Chris Morosoff, who represents Marohn’s estate, spoke of the patriarch's 2009 bargain buy.
'It was definitely $5 or less,' said Mr Morosoff.
'This is what he did... One find was a big deal to him.'
Marohn had traced the certificate by way of long-forgotten companies such as Petrocarbon Chemicals Inc and Taylor Wine Co, according to court documents.
But before the family buys that vacation home in Aspen, they'll have to convince a skeptical Delaware Chancery Court judge that the law is on their side.
'This is a new version of the Beverly Hillbillies,' Judge Leo Strine said at a hearing on January 31, according to a court transcript. He was referring to a 1960s television comedy about a backwoods family that becomes rich by finding oil on their property.
If upheld, Marohn's estate would become among the largest non-institutional investors in Coca-Cola, according to Reuters data.
'The claim of Mr Marohn's estate that it is entitled to millions of dollars in Coca-Cola stock - based on a canceled stock certificate for a long-defunct oil company purchased at an estate sale - is meritless and unfair to the Company's millions of legitimate shareholders,' said a Thursday statement from Coca-Cola.
Bob Kerstein, who runs the scripophily.com website, which researches and sells antique stock certificates, said he gets lots of inquiries from people who want to redeem old certificates.
'We get people who have blank stock certificates and they think they have hit the lotto,' said Kerstein. He said he has to break the news to them they need to be on record with the company as well.
Margules, the Wilmington, Delaware, attorney for Marohn's estate, said he thinks he can persuade Strine that the law favors his client. Marohn's certificate was endorsed and assigned, but the transferee was left blank.
Marohn filled in his name and began digging through corporate records. He eventually wrote to Coca-Cola to demand 1.8million shares of common stock for his 1,625 Palmer Union Oil shares.
The company refused, and sued Marohn in Delaware's Chancery Court in 2009 seeking a declaration he was not entitled to the company's stock.
Marohn's estate filed papers last week showing courts have upheld that a person who was issued a stock certificate and then endorsed and assigned it - but left blank the name of the transferee -- essentially transformed the certificate into a bearer stock. By writing his name on the stock, Marohn became the legal owner, his estate argued.
Strine said in January he would soon decide how to proceed. He also warned the Marohn estate against pursuing 'a drive by of a public company' to extract money to drop the case.
'It's just not a sport,' Strine said.
The case is In Re Shares of Common Stock of the Coca-Cola Company, Delaware Chancery Court, No 5156.

[firegirl]

To me it sounds like the family has no legal grounds to claim the money. they are just greedy.

[Blewvane]

I agree, just a grab for money.

[pbaj12]

These sound like the same type of people that would put a windshield sunshade up in their car, drive off and crash..then sue the company saying it should have told them not to do that.

I don't like big corporations for the most part and Coke is one of them..but I think they owe this family nothing.

[bigmikeymike]

Coca-Cola gets people over on legalities all the time. I say it's about time they got theirs. Not to mention all the money they get for extracting cocaine for "medicinal" uses.

[icheerthebull]

Could'nt agree more bigmike. While the motivations of the family are hardly pure, coca-cola are up there with some of the worst multi-nationals around, would be nice to see em get hit in the only place that they really care about - their pockets.

An international boycott of Coca Cola products will be launched this Tuesday. Its main aim is to stop the policy of violent treatment that has left eight Colombian Coca Cola workers assassinated in recent years. The boycott has been called by Colombian food and drinks workers union SINALTRAINAL and has the endorsement of the country's main trade union federation the CUT as well as the World Social Forum.

SINALTRAINAL accuses Coca Cola of working in consort with paramilitary death squads to remove union activists and hence the union organisation from its plants. Accusations centre on the murder of Carepa plant in Antioquia where 5 union members were assassinated between 1994 and 1996.

Coca-Cola Hit with New Charges of Murder, Rape, Torture

On February 25, 2010 a lawsuit was filed on behalf of eight plaintiffs in the Supreme Court of the State of New York against The Coca-Cola Co. and Coke processing and bottling plants in Guatemala. This case involves charges of murder, rape and torture. The plaintiffs include union leaders and family members. This case has been brought in New York State because plaintiffs and other victims of human rights abuses lack access to an independent and functioning legal system within Guatemala, a country with a corrupt judiciary which has been undermined by the intimidation and murder of witnesses, prosecutors, lawyers and judges.

[bigmikeymike]

^true

[Dynamo47]

I have mixed emotions. On one hand I hate money grabbing law suits more then Liberals. But on the other, big corporations like Coke have made a fortune and then some.

I guess a happy ending for both would be to settle (for under a million) so Coke takes a small hit and the family experiences some good fortunes.

[kellyhound]

Originally Posted by Dynamo47

I have mixed emotions. On one hand I hate money grabbing law suits more then Liberals. But on the other, big corporations like Coke have made a fortune and then some.

I guess a happy ending for both would be to settle (for under a million) so Coke takes a small hit and the family experiences some good fortunes.

[BigFoot]

This article made me want to get a Coke. Thanks.