Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio reportedly hired a team of attorneys to threaten the publisher of a new unauthorized biography with the possibility of a multibillion-dollar lawsuit.
The New York Post reported that Macmillan, which is publishing Rob Copeland”™s “The Fund: Ray Dalio, Bridgewater Associates, and the Unraveling of a Wall Street Legend” on Nov. 7, is promoting the 352-page book as a work that “punctures this carefully-constructed narrative of the benevolent business titan.” The book”™s Amazon listing stated that Copeland exposes Dalio”™s “much-promoted ”˜principles”™ as one of the great feats of hubris in modern memory”•in practice”¦ encouraged a toxic culture of paranoia and backstabbing.”
The book also focused on James Comey”™s work as the Bridgwater general counsel, detailing how the future FBI director”™s duties included “putting underlings on videotaped trials, installing a wild security apparatus and kissing up to Dalio for multimillion-dollar paychecks.”
Dalio, a Greenwich resident with a personal net worth $19 billion, engaged prominent attorneys including John Quinn of Quinn Emmanuel, Tom Clare of Clare Locke and Orin Snyder of Gibson Dunn to challenge Copeland”™s reporting.
“Given the very serious financial and reputational harm that Mr. Copeland”™s false narrative about the firm and Mr. Dalio could cause, Macmillan could easily be exposed to many billions of dollars in damages,” said one attorney letter sent to Macmillan and Copeland earlier this year. Another attorney letter accused claimed the author “grossly distort[ed] the very core of Bridgewater”™s business””even falsely insinuating, in places, serious criminal impropriety. If uncorrected, these falsehoods could cause significant damage to Bridgewater, its employees, and its clients, and could expose Macmillan to billions of dollars in liability as a result.”
Macmillan”™s general counsel responded to Dalio”™s attorneys by stating the company “takes seriously its role as a responsible publisher of books that provide independent reporting on a range of contemporary matters of public interest. We stand by our commitment to that role, even when those books may expose the wealthy and powerful, such as Ray Dalio and Bridgewater, to unwanted scrutiny.”
Photo of Ray Dalio via World Economic Forum / Flickr Creative Commons
