Kevin Keating responds to shill bidding allegations

[ElCabron]

Kevin,

Thanks for responding. Pretty much all of that makes sense to me, particularly this:

Originally Posted by Spahn21

Thus, for the purposes of assessing damages, which was the intent I am told, of Exhibit E, the effect of both a shill bid and a prohibited bid (as is the case of my bids) is the same to the lot winner because both bids will theoretically result in a higher end price for the winning bidder. And this list was prepared to look at the monetary damage assessment, a.k.a., "loss amounts." And, in my case, when compiling the list my name was co-mingled with others since no distinction was made between bids that were executed in good faith like mine (but were prohibited by M-L rules) and those that were actual shill bids.

So your inclusion on the list makes some sense for the purposes of assessing damages if they're saying your bids shouldn't have been allowed, thereby making the impact of your bids basically equivalent to a shill bid. But there really should have been an asterisk or something, clarifying that while your bids were (unknowingly to you) basically the equivalent to shill bids, YOU were not a shill bidder. It's unfortunate that the list was released the way it was because the list was not put together with the idea that it would go public. If it was, I think your inclusion would have been clarified. My sense is that it was more for the purposes of assessing damages, and more geared toward the specific targets of the case (Mastro and Allen) which is why your 38 lots would appear on the list. Whether or not you did anything wrong on those lots wasn't even the point. The point was that Allen and Mastro did. I imagine your case is pretty unique as far as the list goes, though. Those are pretty specific circumstances due to the authentication side of it.

This is the exact reason why anyone who feels they do not belong on the list should be loudly posting about it here. There's zero reason not to. In fact, it's the best possible way to clear your name. Unless you're guilty.

-Ryan