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They better be careful.

The last time Kevin won a court decision, it started a 30-year feud.

In September 2006, Baldwin released his book titled The Unusual Suspect, which details highlights from his personal life, career, days of drug abuse, and ultimately, his turn to becoming a born-again Christian after the 9/11 attacks.

I'm so not surprised he lost this skirmish of good against evil.

I am trying hard to understand the merits of this case. Baldwin sold his shares to Costner, which was probably triggered by the fact that some months before Baldwin had gone through some financial difficulties that led to a default on his mortgage and bankruptcy court. Costner bought the shares from Baldwin for half a million, and everything is signed and sealed and Baldwin walks away. A while later Costner sells the centrifuge equipment to BP for $52 million. Where is the crime? In my industry - Private Equity - one of the most important stages is due diligence and terms negotiations. You need to, independently, do your due diligence to ensure that you ascertain the real truth, and then after that you have your internal and external counsel make sure yu aren't getting the shaft in terms. It is in your docket to ensure you check.

Now, it could be said that Costner was being very 'unethical' (especially IF he was friends with Baldwin) since, knowing the financial troubles Baldwin was going through he SHOULD have told him to wait a while before selling. However, he did not HAVE to, Baldwin definitely didn't do his due dil, and Baldwin was not forced to sign nor was he lied to. He simply was not told the possible future valuation of the shares, and the sale went ahead based on current valuation.

As much as I prefer Baldwin over Costner, the jury made the right decision here. I somehow doubt that, had the deal with BP not materialized (which was very possible) and the shares went down even further leading to Costner asking Baldwin for a claw-back of part of the $500,000 ...had that happened I strongly doubt Baldwin would have given back some of that money. Anyways, in business as long as there is no outright misinformation (lying by commission and false information in particular) then due diligence is up to you. If you don't do your due dil then you shouldn't be too annoyed if the stakes flip. Especially considering that the suing Baldwin wouldn't have given part of their $500,000 back if the company had made a loss of $52m after he got the money.

He still can’t act.

I think there’s more to the story. Somewhere around that time I thought I read that the issue was that there were some closed door meetings that Baldwin and his associate weren’t invited to - between Costner and BP before Costner bought the shares back from Baldwin.

*snort* Good one.