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in which petitioner had Arbitrage Management investments, whether
or not those years were docketed. (We note that if the offer
applied only to the docketed years, the parties could have simply
filed a decision document. They did not do so.)
Moreover, all essential settlement terms were agreed upon no
later than January 1988 (i.e., deduction of 20 percent of the
challenged losses allowed; capital gains eliminated in amounts
commensurate with disallowed losses; and no assertion of
penalties). The concept of "netting" was also agreed to by the
parties. Respondent, however, contends that the settlement
negotiations vis-a-vis petitioners were suspended before agreement
was reached on the netting issue, an essential term. Respondent
argues that the suspension letter was sent to petitioners in June
1988 and final agreement on language of a netting provision to be
included in a closing agreement was not reached until December
1989.
3(...continued)
included all of the Arbitrage Management investors referred to in
Ms. Kaplan's Jan. 15, 1988, acceptance letter. He testified that
he mistakenly believed that the list included only Arbitrage
Management investors who had accepted guideline settlement offers
sent to them individually. We are not persuaded. There is no
suggestion that Mr. Kletnick was misled in any way, and a
unilateral error of counsel, in the absence of misrepresentation
by the adverse party, is not a sufficient ground to vacate a
settlement agreement. See Stamm Intl. Corp. v. Commissioner, 90
T.C. 315 (1988).
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