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The record does not establish the following relevant dates:
a. The dates on which Moshe Melnik met Mr. Jennings in
Houston and received MMI’s initial proposal to acquire HouTex;
b. The date on which Moshe Melnik first met with Mr.
Pennoni;
c. The dates of subsequent meetings with Mr. Pennoni;
d. The date on which the Melniks decided to engage in a
transaction involving foreign trusts and a foreign corporation;
e. The date on which the foreign trusts acquired Clend;
f. The date on which the Melniks transferred their HouTex
shares to Clend; and
g. The date on which the Melniks and MMI reached an
agreement in principle regarding the acquisition of HouTex.
Although the vagueness of the chronology in the record
facilitates petitioners’ arguments that MMI’s acquisition of
HouTex was negotiated over a period of months and was not
finalized until after Clend had purchased 75 percent of HouTex’s
stock and that petitioners did not continue to exercise de facto
control over the assets ostensibly owned by Clend and the foreign
trusts, the lack of precise dates is a defect in the record that
impairs our review of the transactions. It is also a defect that
petitioners could easily have remedied but did not. It is well
established that the failure of a party to introduce evidence
which, if true, would be favorable to him, gives rise to the
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