Rossi vs. Darden developments [CASE CLOSED]

Quote from joshg

1) Did IH inform Woodford, the Chinese and other potential investors that Rossi had removed the instrumentation and monitoring access, that he was restricting access to it, and that they felt it was not a bona fide test?

2) Did IH inform its investors that they were so suspicious of the test being fraudulent that they declined to collect payment for the power they were generating?

I think the smart money is on "no."

If they did not, surely Woodford, the Chinese and the others will take back the money. It hasn't been spent. I expect they could get it back just by threatening a lawsuit. There is now a mountain of evidence proving that Rossi is a fraud. If I.H. represented him as real and got funding on that basis, it would be easy for them prove that happened.

As far as I know, Woodford has not demanded his money back, so I suppose they told him all about Rossi, all along. Since they told me about their doubts about Rossi, I doubt they would have withheld that information from him.

Quote from IH Fanboy

But boy did we have some wishful thinking lenr-forum mind share on the supposed spoliation issue!

You do not understand the term "wishful thinking." If I were convinced beforehand that the judge would rule in favor of spoliation, and flabbergasted that he did not, that would be wishful thinking. But if I merely wished -- or hoped he would -- that's not wishful thinking.

In my case, I know nothing about lawsuits or courts, so if you had asked me "will I.H. win the spoliation motion?" I would have said: "I have no idea, but I think they deserve to win it."

Quote from IH Fanboy

While I believe in controls when running an experiment, I don't think we know that Darden's dummy reactor "found essentially identical high COP readings." I remember Darden's story that he told during his deposition, but did he mention his dummy gave him COP 9 or 11? No.

No he didn't say a COP of 9 or 11. But that is not relevant - and you answering your own question is not an effective way to actually converse.

Darden's actual quote, from deposition was:

"...this thing [a 'dummy' unit verified simultaneously by both Darden and Rossi] was running perfect and the results were good, very consistent with the other results. "

So yes, I would say that my statement characterizing Darden's claim under oath in deposition was that the dummy "found essentially identical high COP readings"

For more context, see below from 236-03 pages 195-200

Quote

...we made different kinds of reactors plus blank reactors. So a dummy reactor, something that has no fuel in it at all. And that way you could test that against something that had fuel and see if there was a difference.

That's the best way of running a test is you put two things side by side, observe them with the same instruments and then you know. And so he would never run a dummy test. He didn't like running dummy tests -- I mean, not side by side because -- and he would say, "No. The dummy might interfere with it" or there was always some reason -- sort of a technical reason. And, you know, maybe he's right. Maybe we'll mess it up. So we tended not to do that.

But we had a dummy. And these things were all numbered. And there was a six - you have one through ten or whatever. And so a six and a nine are the same number just inverted, right? It's hard to tell. Like, was that a six or a nine. It depends on which way you hold it.

The device got built with a dummy charge. And later in going through the list of the different devices or which ones we had, I realized that. And I reached out to him and said, you know -- and, meanwhile, this thing was running perfect and the results were good, very consistent with the other results. And I reached out to him and said, "We need to have a -- you know, this is really important." This was around Christmastime or early January of '14. And I remember that date.

And so he said, "oh, well, you know." I said, "We have a serious problem. We need to talk about this because there's a big measurement error that we detected." And we were always kind of debating about camera settings and measurement and how to measure. And he didn't like having two ways of measuring. He said, "No, don't touch it with a thermocouple" -- the temperature measuring device as opposed to the thermal cameras. He said, "it will interfere with it or it won't read accurately. The cameras are more trustworthy."

So I -- he said he wouldn't come. I said, "We've got to have an in-person meeting and talk about this. It's really important." So I said I'm coming down there. And so I flew down there and met him...

And I said, "Andrea, that unit that was fueled with a dummy was producing great energy. So unless something else is going on here we've got a serious problem with measurement."

[speaking as Rossi:]"No, no, it's impossible. It can't be. " You know, "the charge got stolen" you know, "somebody came in and took it out."

... So he agreed to come up to North Carolina. And he and I together drilled it out. You know, like, drilled into it to see if there was anything in it. There was nothing in it. And he stormed out and, you know, the "Russians came and stole the charge..."

And so that was just an example of instead of saying, "Wait a second. Oh, wow. We have an instrumentation error here. We've got a problem. We need to really bore into this and try to figure it out", you know, "What's going on? What's wrong with the way we're measuring?" You know, it was just like, you know, we're going to ignore that or kind of carry on notwithstanding that or not use multiple ways of measuring.

So that's an example [of Rossi's pattern of obfuscation]...

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Quote from Zeus46

There's a Vaughn email where he describes seeing ecat excess heat in a water boiling experiment... No messing about with IR cams and that...

Exactly, and Vaughn's scientific credentials and/or experience are what? zero, zilch, nada. He's a salesman.

@sigmoidal

The story by Darden about the dummy reactor is fascinating to me. Not because I necessarily believe it, but because of how Darden recounts what a surprise it was to him as early as Christmas '13 or January '14 that the e-Cat didn't work in his opinion. I mean, if IH really had a dummy reactor with performance that was consistent with the non-dummy reactors, that should have been end of story, no? No further seeking of outside investment money. No further tests. They knew it was all a big hoax at that point.

Or not. It seems like a pretty self-serving story with no paper trail or evidence to support it. And the subsequent behavior of IH belies its veracity.

Another very odd thing to me is that he stated that Rossi said "No, don't touch it with a thermocouple." And are we to believe that IH in NC doing their own independent testing of their IH-built reactors obeyed Rossi's commands not to double check it with a thermocouple, even though Rossi was half way across the country in FL? It seems like a stretch, does it not?

Quote from IH Fanboy

@sigmoidal

The story by Darden about the dummy reactor is fascinating to me. Not because I necessarily believe it, but because of how Darden recounts what a surprise it was to him as early as Christmas '13 or January '14 that the e-Cat didn't work in his opinion. I mean, if IH really had a dummy reactor with performance that was consistent with the non-dummy reactors, that should have been end of story, no? No further seeking of outside investment money. No further tests. They knew it was all a big hoax at that point.

Or not. It seems like a pretty self-serving story with no paper trail or evidence to support it. And the subsequent behavior of IH belies its veracity.

Another very odd thing to me is that he stated that Rossi said "No, don't touch it with a thermocouple." And are we to believe that IH in NC doing their own independent testing of their IH-built reactors obeyed Rossi's commands not to double check it with a thermocouple, even though Rossi was half way across the country in FL? It seems like a stretch, does it not?

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Nope. Not a stretch at all. They then started keeping track of events, started finding real experts, and eventually sent stuff off to Boeing for more precise testing. And they gave Rossi all the rope he asked for, to see this story through to the end, one way or another.

@Para

So far, we haven't seen the tracking of events that you suggest. No reports of failed experiments. Just indications that things were full bore ahead, bringing in tens of millions from outside investors some time after the supposed dummy reactor experience. Why would they need to find real experts if they had a dummy reactor that gave performance that was consistent with the non-dummy reactors? It doesn't take an expert to know that the e-Cat doesn't work, if that was really the case. You don't need to send it off to Boeing (an aircraft company who, as far as I'm aware, are not experts in calorimetry) for more precise testing. None of this makes sense.

Quote from IH Fanboy

@Para

So far, we haven't seen the tracking of events that you suggest. No reports of failed experiments. Just indications that things were full bore ahead, bringing in tens of millions from outside investors some time after the supposed dummy reactor experience. Why would they need to find real experts if they had a dummy reactor that gave performance that was consistent with the non-dummy reactors? It doesn't take an expert to know that the e-Cat doesn't work, if that was really the case. You don't need to send it off to Boeing (an aircraft company who, as far as I'm aware, are not experts in calorimetry) for more precise testing. None of this makes sense.

I agree - we don't get reports of failed experiments much.

That is understandable. If you are trying to make something work, you report about the notable stuff (when it works) not the various trial setups where you made a mistake and nothing happened.

The reason they might send stuff for Boeing is because they were in a bind. They had bought Rossi's stuff and 6 profs, in two independent tests (the second better than the first) had said with assurance that it works. It also worked for them with Rossi, but not without. They did not have enough expertise to work out what was going on. And through this all they just did not know whether this was for real, or some very clever set of convincing false results. Rather like here, they possibly had some guys thinking it was nothing, and some thinking it must be real, but they were doing something wrong that stopped it working. Remember this is LENR known to be temperamental where small changes in conditions or treatment can affect operation.

It makes sense, but you need to relax certain assumptions about it being easy to be sure you have got things right when looking for a not understood effect thought to be temperamental. And not judge things with hindsight. If I seem nice to IH here it is because I don't see they should be judged too harshly for being technically incompetent, given that they now admit it and have got better staff. Compare that with Levi et al, not admitting it, but not prepared to defend it either.

Wow, my post about Darden et al. knowing full well the Doral test was bogus from the beginning but still wooing investors got some hackles up. Some responses studiously ignored my contention and questions. For example:

Quote from sigmoidal

I disagree with those who find fault with IH because they raised (and attempted to raise) funds from investors speculating on LENR.

I certainly have no problem with this, nor did I ever indicate that I did. What I do have a problem with is if they misrepresented or failed to disclose what they knew about the inadequacies of the test (meaning, they knew going in that they would never be able to validate the technology from the test) and that they suspected Rossi of fraud.

Quote from sigmoidal

We know that Darden and Vaughn were careful to NOT claim that Rossi's technology worked.

There is a world of difference between telling potential investors that you're not sure if the technology works versus telling them that you do not think the test is bona fide and are worried Rossi is trying to defraud you. Surely you can see the difference. And if not, then there's really nothing more to discuss.

Others have objected to my inferential leap: they say, how do you know that IH didn't inform potential investors? They must have, otherwise Woodford and others would have sued them. Examples:

Quote from sigmoidal

It would be stupid (and unethical if you think about it) for them to NOT inform potential investors about Rossi's stuff. We know from written communications that Darden specifically stated caveats warning that Rossi's 'technology' might not work. We know they have several other technologies they have beneficial rights to, not just Rossi.

Quote from THHuxleynew

They would be really stupid not to give Woodford their evaluation (honest) and the state of the external validations.

Quote from THHuxleynew

I don't know that IH were honest with investors. But there is just no evidence they were dishonest, and I can see no motivation for them to be dishonest. They would have destroyed their reputations (maybe not sued, but no-one would trust them) if they were not straight with their investors. It is their business after all, and they have a successful track record.

Quote from JedRothwell

If they did not, surely Woodford, the Chinese and the others will take back the money. It hasn't been spent. I expect they could get it back just by threatening a lawsuit. There is now a mountain of evidence proving that Rossi is a fraud. If I.H. represented him as real and got funding on that basis, it would be easy for them prove that happened.

As far as I know, Woodford has not demanded his money back, so I suppose they told him all about Rossi, all along. Since they told me about their doubts about Rossi, I doubt they would have withheld that information from him.

There are several questionable assumptions underlying these arguments:

1. It's not clear that Woodford would sue. A lawsuit would bring a lot of publicity and make Woodford and their 2 1/2 years of "due dilligence" look very, very bad. Even worse than it does already. $50 Million is a lot of money to us but for them it's just a cost of doing business and not to put a spotlight on it by bringing a suit. Besides, if Woodford did indeed invest on the basis of Rossi and other IP that IH had acquired, then they may still be hoping the other IP works out.

2. I'm not certain about Woodford not asking for some of their money back. I seem to recall an allusion to this in one of the depositions, but I can't find it now. I thought that shutting down Murray's engineering operation was part of that, but I could be wrong.

3. IH's actions simply don't add up. Something about them stinks to high heaven. And no matter how many of IH's supporters repeat the company line about their pure hearts and noble intentions, it's not going to make the stink go away. Everybody is saying that IH would be stupid not to disclose everything they knew to Woodford and others. Well, maybe there is more that IH knows that they did tell Woodford and others but hasn't been revealed to us. Why should we assume that Woodford is not somehow complicit in IH duplicity? Maybe IH has found some use for Rossi's IP, and Woodford knows that?

Quote from Hermes

So why don't you attempt to substantiate? All you have done is to claim without any evidence that investors were not informed.

Yes, I have not lost sight of the fact that I am still making an inferential leap: I don't know that IH didn't fully inform Woodford and others. I went through some of the depositions looking for discussion of a presentation for a Chinese audience that was attached to some e-mail in late summer/early fall of 2015, during the test. My recollection from the deposition was that that presentation touted IH's replications and drummed up Rossi's early results from the Doral test. That would be one piece of evidence. Here are two more I found while looking for that, and I am quite sure there is more where this came from:

Here is Vaughn describing his site visits to Doral with Paul Lamacraft of Woodford and what he told them about Rossi's technology at that point:

"And we were saying to Paul Lamacraft we just don't know. We've -- we've not been successful. These experts have apparently. I mean, these are their reports. Here are critiques of their reports. We don't know which way this is going to go." (236-06:242)

You would think that if Vaughn had told Lamacraft they did not consider Doral to be a bona fide test and that they suspected Rossi of fraud, that he he might have mentioned it at that point in the deposition. But no, apparently he only told Lamacraft "we don't know which way this is going to do." But that's not true: they knew going in that they had no way of verifying the Doral test results. So they knew the results of the test could not be trusted, and they did not consider it a bona fide test from the get go. Yet all the while they are saying in their depositions that they planned on paying him (some amount of money) if the test results were positive. But they knew from the start that there was no way they could know if the results were positive. Am I the only one here who sees the contradictions here? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.

Here is Darden talking about site meetings with the Chinese and Lamacraft:

---

"We had a lot of interest in -- in the -- in the technology.· And so there were people who wanted to see it so we took -- there were some Chinese visitors that wanted to come see it about the prospect of becoming manufacturing partners in China, and Woodford wanted to see it.· The Woodford team wanted to see it.

"Q.· ·The Chinese people who visited, were they 25 interested in making an investment or a JD partnership?

"A.· ·The real motivation was to take the technology to China.· They might have been interested in or willing to invest in a U.S. company as well.· But their primary motivation was to be the partners for developing the technology in China.· And we said to them, 'We don't know if we have a technology that works that we could use in China, but you're welcome to come see it.'" (214-10:225-6)

---

So according to his testimony, he did not tell them "this isn't a bona fide test, and we think Rossi might be trying to scam us." No, he said "we don't know if we have a technology that works." Am I the only one who sees how shady this is? And if they knew the test was not bona fide from the get-go, as he testified, then why would they invite anybody to the Doral site even once, let alone multiple times? Why would you ask an investor to look at a test that you knew to be bogus and possibly being run by a scam artist? Another poster said:

Quote from oldguy

Paul and Henry (from Woodford) were touring several of IH's supported researchers. By what reason would you think that they could refuse a visit to Rossi while they were here in the states?

If they were told point-blank "the test is worthless, and we think Rossi is trying to scam us," then why would they bother to go there on at least two separate occasions? It stretches credulity beyond the breaking point. But even if they went just on a lark, it still doesn't answer my questions about whether IH fully disclosed its misgivings about the test and Rossi.

Lastly, there is one thing I mostly agree with:

Quote from THHuxleynew

In this situation I think it is just very, very unfair and improper to go accusing people, who may be naive but are doing something rather noble with a long shot bet, of criminal dishonesty.

I think based on the evidence so far, it is fair to accuse them of criminal dishonesty, though the evidence does not exist to convict. I also don't know if their alleged behavior is technically considered criminal in the eyes of the law. So rather than say 'defrauded' investors I should probably use a euphemism like 'mislead' them or 'withheld pertinent information' or 'did not make a full disclosure.'

joshg,

Nice post, Mister!

Funny to see the list of the quotations you used. I would love to some mails between Darden an Woodford.

Cheers,

JB

Josh - it is good to have your challenges here. It helps now we've reached a sort of summarise what has happened stage. I'd guess we will not get much more now on the technical disclosure side of things.

Your post in reply to me and sigmoidal and Jed:

There are several questionable assumptions underlying these arguments:

1. It's not clear that Woodford would sue. A lawsuit would bring a lot of publicity and make Woodford and their 2 1/2 years of "due dilligence" look very, very bad. Even worse than it does already. $50 Million is a lot of money to us but for them it's just a cost of doing business and not to put a spotlight on it by bringing a suit. Besides, if Woodford did indeed invest on the basis of Rossi and other IP that IH had acquired, then they may still be hoping the other IP works out.

2. I'm not certain about Woodford not asking for some of their money back. I seem to recall an allusion to this in one of the depositions, but I can't find it now. I thought that shutting down Murray's engineering operation was part of that, but I could be wrong.

1. I'm personally inclined to agree with you that Woodford would not sue even if cheated, unless it was very easily provable. No mileage. They'd write it off as a bad risky investment - no problem. I don't see anything here that undermines my point: if IH was dishonest with Woodford, more precisely, if Woodford felt they were being cheated by IH, that would be very, very bad for Darden whose whole career is built on successful managing of investment. Word would of course get around. And if there was a definite lack of disclosure that would be a criminal offence (at least in UK) and I can't see why Darden would risk so much when he must know that it would out. Having said that, Woodford bear loss from this - what was held out as possible did not happen. Hey - that is high risk investment for you. I'm pretty sure that IH did very definitely give all investors strong warnings about Rossi - one of their investors said that he felt Darden went over the top in his Rossi warnings. Woodford would rely on the independent assessments from proper scientists. Those are much more convincing than anything that IH says about preliminary tests. So though IH would have had some optimism, and might have shown that to Woodford in a sales pitch, Woodford knew that they were making their own independent assessment of the risks and stand by that. It is the way these things work. I can't see the inconsistency here between what we are told and what might have happened. One more little tidbit: someone here noted that Woodford were sniffing around LENR investments well before IH, and that keys with them saying they had done 2.5 years due diligence. So they were not naive ignorant parties here.

2. Woodford would no doubt have had more money contingent upon near-term success (which would mean Rossi stuff working). I vaguely remember that.

And:

3. IH's actions simply don't add up. Something about them stinks to high heaven. And no matter how many of IH's supporters repeat the company line about their pure hearts and noble intentions, it's not going to make the stink go away. Everybody is saying that IH would be stupid not to disclose everything they knew to Woodford and others. Well, maybe there is more that IH knows that they did tell Woodford and others but hasn't been revealed to us. Why should we assume that Woodford is not somehow complicit in IH duplicity? Maybe IH has found some use for Rossi's IP, and Woodford knows that?

You included this under things that had questionable assumptions. I know it is not the way you meant it, but I'll agree with you for this last point. You are not adding any argument to justify your gut feeling that something about IH stinks to high heaven. You do add a new suggestion, that Woodford is maybe complicit in some illegal or immoral activity here. Again with zero evidence. That seems even more of a stretch to me than the IH stinks to high heaven story.

We are in conspiracy theory territory here, so I know that no amount of rational consideration will sway those who feel something is not understood and want a conspiracy explanation. Humans are like that. We want everything to be tidy and causative. When faced with things we don't fully understand we need an explanation. It used to be supernatural beings, now it is worldwide conspiracies...

I'm in no hurry myself to go down that path.

If they were told point-blank "the test is worthless, and we think Rossi is trying to scam us," then why would they bother to go there on at least two separate occasions? It stretches credulity beyond the breaking point. But even if they went just on a lark, it still doesn't answer my questions about whether IH fully disclosed its misgivings about the test and Rossi.

This is a classic example, from Josh, of a logical fallacy that has been very common here.

The argument rests on the idea that anyone could be sure one way or the other. Either we have a miracle new technology or we know we have bought a pig in a poke. Or at a different level: we know Rossi is dishonest: either his test has enough independent checks to be worth something or it is worthless.

In the real world IH will not be certain. Woodford would be told point-blank: "We know Rossi is unreliable with a dishonest history. If it were him only, then he might well be trying to scam us, and his behaviour certainly looks like that. But we have the following independent validations so we think there might well be something real here."

IH could not be sure about the test's value before it ran. If the mysterious customer were really Johnson Matthey then it would be iron-clad, if not then not. They would have thought the customer they were not allowed to contact fishy but Rossi set it up quite cleverly, could they rule out the possibility that the customer is real given what Rossi and Johnson said before the Term Sheet was signed? They would think Johnson as a lawyer could not be lying about the setup.

After the test was running, even if it smelt to high heavan, Woodford would want to smell it for themselves, I think? I know I would...

Quote from guest111

Exactly, and Vaughn's scientific credentials and/or experience are what? zero, zilch, nada. He's a salesman.

Don't measure everyone else by your own yardstick. Whilst it's very possible that you might struggle to work out how much energy is required to boil a given amount of water, Vaughn seems more than capable of understanding the technicalities, based on reading of his emails.

Just some interesting fact out of the Murray pressure meeting. IH (Dewey..) feared that they over pressured Rossi and...

Case 1:16-cv-21199-CMA

Document 215-3

Entered on FLSD Docket 03/23/2017 423

Page 245 of

Q.· · Okay.· And then Mr. Weaver sends you an ·e-mail July 22nd, says, "Agreed.· There's a high ·probability that R" -- is that Rossi? · · ·

A.· · I presume.

Q.· · -- "is going to screw up, screw up his deal." · · · A.· · Yeah, I don't know what Dewey was saying here, but.

Q. Did you ask him what he was saying?

A. No.

Q. No, you didn't.

A. No.

Q. Okay.

A. I get 100 e-mails a day, particularly from Dewey, so. ·

Q. Okay.· Then it goes on to say "TD".· Who would that be?

A. I believe that would be Tom Darden.

Q. Okay.· So, "Tom Darden may try and change and lower the pressure on Rossi with a more simplified, lower profile plan B."

A. Yes.

Q.· · So they're going to bring the, bring the ·pressure down on Rossi -- · · ·

A.· · No, I don't think that was -- · · ·

Q.· · -- to change the status quo?

· · · A.· · That is not what the, I, my belief is at this ·point -- again I'll go back.· Tom and John both insisted ·that if any possibility that this was working, they ·wanted us to be able to validate it, verify it, and ·reproduce it and, because that was the gateway to ·follow-on development activities.

So what Tom, my recollection was that Tom ·said, well, why don't we just simplify this and do a ·much smaller test, get together with Mr. Rossi, come up ·with something that we can all simply test, and do that ·test so we could take that back and move forward with ·it, if we could produce it and validate it, verify it.

So I believe at this point, and I wasn't ·directly involved, but what was, what was suggested to ·me was that potentially we could agree to do a smaller ·scale, simplified test.· And, and I think that the ·general conclusion from everybody was if we got any ·level of reliable performance, there would be a path ·forward without a doubt.

Quote from THHuxleynew

This is a classic example, from Josh, of a logical fallacy that has been very common here.

The argument rests on the idea that anyone could be sure one way or the other....

In the real world IH will not be certain....

IH could not be sure about the test's value before it ran.

This is a classic example, from THHuxleynew, of distorting the facts and twisting arguments that has been very common here. If you read the Darden deposition I linked to in my earlier post, you will see that it is quite clear that before the test ran, they were sure that the results could not be properly validated. "It was not going to be a bona fide test." In other words they knew the test's value was worthless. It's true that they couldn't know ahead of time if the results were going to come back "positive or negative," but they did know that no matter the result, it could not be trusted.

Quote from THHuxleynew

You do add a new suggestion, that Woodford is maybe complicit in some illegal or immoral activity here. Again with zero evidence. That seems even more of a stretch to me than the IH stinks to high heaven story.

We are in conspiracy theory territory here

Yes, you are correct: the assumption built into the "IH wouldn't be so stupid" line is that Woodford is not complicit with IH. (The fact that something about IH's actions stinks to high heaven is not part of the assumption.) It was badly worded. And I agree it's a stretch, but it is also an unexamined assumption, and I like to examine assumptions.

And yes it would take us into conspiracy theory territory, except that we're already there. But instead of your favored theory that "Rossi conspired with Fabiani and Penon to steal $89 million from IH and Woodford," this conspiracy theory is that "IH and Woodford conspired to steal Rossi's IP for cheap." Those two options are not diametrically opposed, you know. They can both be true. There is also a huge gray area in between.

This board uses a lot of us verses them psychology. The assumption is that one side must be good and the other side evil. Instead we need to view each side as people. Now people frequently are not logical or rational in their thinking nor are they simple. Every person, for lack of better words, is both good and evil at the same time. Here is my evaluation of Darden et al.

Person: Hey Darden have you seen the news about this amazing new invention, according to press releases this E-cat thing produces much more energy than is put in and is ready to produce in a couple of years.

Darden: Looks interesting, let's check it out.

Darden: Rossi, I've seen some of your stuff but it looks like you'll need a lot of money to get it off the ground. Think you'll be interested in selling your invention?

Rossi: I might be if the price is right. Let me show you what I've got. All of these highly respected scientist agree with me that I've got something. I just need to work out a few bugs to get it ready for commercial production.

Darden: What your proposing looks good. Let me talk to my investors.

Darden to investors: Hey for about 20 million up front in costs, we can be in on the ground floor of something that could be worth billions but it's high risk.

Darden to Rossi: We have a deal. Here's 1.5 million, let's see your patent and plant. Hey, that first test looks pretty god, Here's another 10 million, show us how to get this ready for commercial production and reliability. We'll also pay up front costs and give you another 90 million when we succeed.

Darden to investors: This guy is a lot harder to deal with than we thought and we're having a lot of trouble replicating his successes but we've already sunk a lot of money into it. We need to continue. Best case scenario we still get rich. Worst case scenario, we prove we don't need to look at this method of LENR anymore. Also, by continuing we can hold onto the patent in case someone gets it to work.

Darden: After all the help and money we gave Rossi, after doing everything he wanted, he has the gall to sue us for his failure to transfer the technology to us??? Fine, pay back is a B***h! We'll make sure he never gets anyone to support him again!

If I felt like it, I could do the same thing from Rossi's point of view but someone else can do that if they feel like it. My whole point is that the world is seldom black and white.

Quote

This is a classic example, from THHuxleynew, of distorting the facts and twisting arguments that has been very common here. If you read the Darden deposition I linked to in my earlier post, you will see that it is quite clear that before the test ran, they were sure that the results could not be properly validated. "It was not going to be a bona fide test." In other words they knew the test's value was worthless. It's true that they couldn't know ahead of time if the results were going to come back "positive or negative," but they did know that no matter the result, it could not be trusted.

Umm... Yes, thanks for that Josh. But that refers to Rossi's test results not the (potential) real validation from an external customer. So I think you managed to misread my post - or perhaps just made the no doubt from your POV understandable assumption that I must be making a logical error...

I'd agree with you and them 100% that no test result even half-controlled by Rossi can be trusted. Rossi's conditions for this one were clearly to his liking, and not to IHs.

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And yes it would take us into conspiracy theory territory, except that we're already there. But instead of your favored theory that "Rossi conspired with Fabiani and Penon to steal $89 million from IH and Woodford," this conspiracy theory is that "IH and Woodford conspired to steal Rossi's IP for cheap." Those two options are not diametrically opposed, you know. They can both be true. There is also a huge gray area in between.

We can agree about grey areas. I'm a fan of them, as you can tell from my critique of your argument.

I don't agree about about the comparability of these two conspiracies. I'm not even sure it is a conspiracy in the case of Rossi since Fabiani may not have been complicit - though IH thinks he is - and Penon does not seem to be regarded as complicit - though he may be.

There is a particularly large grey area in your so-called Rossi conspiracy where these guys, and others, can help Rossi (who is known to be highly duplicitous) with his plans without being aware they are doing anything wrong. Ask no questions see no evil. In fact even Rossi does not need to be aware that he is doing anything wrong. He needs to have his well-documented ability to twist truth and ignore facts.

Compare that with the principals of a large VC, and one of the biggest ever worldwide Investment Trusts, conspiring to deceive investors...