Reader and law professor Larry Cunningham sent along a copy of the
Berkshire
Hathaway press release that responds to the NY Times hatchet
job s
tory on Warren Buffet from the other day. Berkshire
asserts:
Berkshire Hathaway does not expect any restatement of its financial reports. Berkshire Hathaway and Gen Re have been actively cooperating with the ongoing reinsurance investigation. In connection therewith, a number of Berkshire/Gen Re representatives have voluntarily given interviews to the investigating authorities, and Mr. Buffett will shortly do so as well.
The release also identifies a number of factual inaccuracies in the press accounts.
I'm no fan of Warren Buffett's politics, as long-time readers know, but I hate to see the MSM smearing the guy by innuendos. Maybe there is a problem that the SEC and Spitzer will turn up, but at this point the press is just speculating.
Larry Cunningham, by the way, is editor of The Essays of Warren Buffett : Lessons for Corporate America, a very fine collection of the famous letters Buffet includes in Berkshire Hathaway's annual shareholder reports, and Introductory Accounting, Finance, And Auditing For Lawyers, which I regard as the best introduction to the legal and accounting aspects of corporate disclosures in the post-Sarbanes-Oxley world.
