Forbes reporter gets subpoenaed by hedge fund

Nathan Vardi, an associate editor at Forbes, where he has worked since 2000, has been subpoenaed by a New York hedge fund engaged in litigation with the owner of the Cleveland Browns seeking any communication between Vardi and the football team owner’s investment company.

Vardi writes, “FORBES intends to move to quash the subpoena pursuant to the New York state shield law, which protects the newsgathering materials of a reporter from disclosure. The subpoena commands me, a staff journalist at FORBES, to ‘direct all information known or available to you’ regarding ‘any direct or indirect communications between you’ Lerner Master Fund or the Paige hedge funds. You can read the whole subpoena below.

“Michele Paige, who heads up Paige Capital and is a visiting law lecturer at Yale Law School, according to the school’s website, is trying to compel me to produce ‘any document bearing any marks, notes (whether typed or handwritten) or other additional information.’

“The subpoenaing of a journalist’s documents is not the only unorthodox move made by Paige Capital in the last year. ‘[W]e are fully prepared to litigate this matter to the bitter end because we will continue to manage your money, and collect management and incentive fees, until this matter is resolved many years hence,’ Christopher Paige, Michele Paige’s husband and Paige Capital’s general counsel, defiantly wrote in a March 2010 letter to Lerner.”

Read more here.