In July of 2006, Fairfax Financial Holdings (NYSE: FFH) filed a lawsuit alleging stock manipulation on the parts of several hedge funds, contract hedge fund operatives, and John Gwynn, an analyst with stock brokerage Morgan Keegan & Co.

The complaint is very enlightening and detailed in its claims, which can be broadly summarized as follows: certain hedge funds, which stood to profit by scuttling Fairfax’s stock price, illegally conspired and acted to do as much.

More specifically, the complaint says:

As a result of [S.A.C. Capital]’s frequent communications with Morgan Keegan and Gwynn, S.A.C. learns when Gwynn intends to issue reports and what they will say and, indeed, frequently directs Gwynn on when to issue reports and what to say. (p.14)

Also like S .A.C., Exis is a significant client of Morgan Keegan and has substantial influence over Gwynn, with whom Exis also collaborates closely. (p.15)

…[convicted hedge fund operative Spyro Contogouris] orchestrat[ed] negative analyst coverage — particularly through Gwynn… (p.18)

Gwynn collaborated with certain hedge funds, including Enterprise member Trinity Capital, in developing extreme criticisms of Fairfax to support both short-term and long-term shorting strategies dubbed “the Fairfax Project.” Gwynn communicated these developed criticisms and his intention to release a highly negative report containing those criticisms in a series of road show presentations to major hedge funds including, among others S.A.C., Lone Pine, Kynikos, Highfields, Greenlight Capital, and Perry Capital . The hedge funds participating in this discussions understood at their conclusion that Gwynn intended to initiate coverage of Fairfax with an extremely critical report, they understood and contributed to the substance of the criticisms to be included in the report, and they understood that the report’s release would be timed to provide them an opportunity to establish their short positions. These critical Morgan Keegan clients also understood that once they had established a short position in Fairfax, Gwynn would continue to support that position with negative reports until they covered. This understanding was critical because the Fairfax Project contemplated short-term and longer term components, the latter of which involved enormous potential exposure to the Enterprise if the stock price increased substantially. (p.20)

The S.A.C. Defendants, Exis Defendants, Lone Pine Defendants, Rocker Defendants, Third Point Defendants and Trinity Defendants…frequently had communications and coordinated with [John Gwynn] and caused [Gwynn] to disseminate [his] reports to numerous clients, investors, journalists, and media outlets… (p.62)

Reading the complaint in full, it’s clear that Gwynn’s actions played a pivotal role in the execution of the defendant hedge funds’ manipulation efforts.

So clear, in fact, it may have contributed to Gwynn’s decision, six months later, to terminate coverage of Fairfax Financial (a fact bemoaned by Herb Greenberg, not surprisingly one of Gwynn’s biggest fans).

As expected, the suit’s many named defendants responded to the complaint with indignant denials and, in the case of John Gwynn, a countersuit filed in November of 2007, accusing Fairfax of making him “a scapegoat” for the company’s “financial, legal and accounting problems.”

Today, ten months after Gwynn’s countersuit was filed, a spokesman for Morgan Keegan told Bloomberg that Gwynn has been fired “for violation of a firm policy relating to his apparent advance disclosure of his pending research coverage of Fairfax Financial Holdings.”

In other words, Fairfax was correct about what Gwynn was doing.

Given that fact, what are the chances Fairfax was not also correct about who benefited from Gwynn’s corruption: mega hedge funds such as S.A.C. Capital, Third Point Partners, Greenlight Capital, Rocker Partners, et al?

And, supposing that aspect is true, there would appear to be quite a bit of coordination between short-selling hedge funds and shady stock research outfits.

And that sounds suspiciously like the claim Deep Capture reporter Patrick Byrne has been making, ad nauseum, for over three years.

Mega-hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb recently disclosed a double-whammy to his investors: substantial losses early in the third quarter of 2008, and the initiation of a formal SEC investigation into the operation of Loeb’s fund, Third Point Partners.

Loeb blamed part of his firm’s losses on the unfortunate fact of being short financial stocks just when the SEC decided to temporarily enforce existing laws prohibiting illegal naked short selling of a handful of such firms.

Loeb blamed the SEC investigation on a perception that his communications with other hedge funds violate securities laws.

While nobody outside the SEC can know with certainty just what it is about Loeb’s communications with other hedge funds that might be problematic, based on my observations of Loeb’s stock message board postings, I do have a theory.

In this installment, we’ll examine apparent coordination between Daniel Loeb and David Einhorn, manager of mega-hedge fund Greenlight Capital.

According to his book, Fooling Some of the People All of the Time, Einhorn established his much-storied short position in Allied Capital (NYSE:ALD) in early May of 2002. Einhorn first publicly outlined his short thesis on the late afternoon of May 15, 2002. The next morning, Allied held a conference call to address Einhorn’s claims. Interestingly, Einhorn himself did not participate in that call, however the first several questions – which achieved a much greater level of specificity and detail than Einhorn offered the night before – were asked by Daniel Loeb.

Either Loeb is an unusually quick study, or he and Einhorn had communicated substantially on the subject of shorting Allied Capital in advance.

Interestingly, on Allied’s Yahoo Finance message board, one of the biggest proponents of the Einhorn thesis also turns out to be Daniel Loeb.

In this message, for example, Loeb’s alter-ego, senor_pinche_wey (as proven here), confronts a poster who questions the veracity of Einhorn’s claims regarding Allied.

A few weeks later, Loeb’s alter-alter ego, mr_pink_esq (also proven here), says of Einhorn’s analysis:

“Looks like Einhorn has this one nailed. Einhorn has one of the best reputations in the business. He would hate to be on the wrong side of this trade.”

And lest you think Loeb was just offering his buddy Einhorn moral support, consider this post, in which Loeb wonders aloud (in the third person) how he might spend the “millions He will make on his ALD short. He was considering purchasing Himself a new car. However He is torn between the Aston Martin DB9, the Bentley GT and the Ferrari 360 Spyder…Maybe if this thing goes bust He can buy Himself a Mercedes Maybach.”

In all, Loeb, with the direct support of known paid message board basher Yolanda Holtzee (using such account names as ms_mint_green_esq and regulators_have_been_notified) personally posted scores of such messages over three years.

This appears to be an example of Loeb and Einhorn coordinating their efforts on the short side.

Coming soon: a clear-cut example of Loeb coordinating efforts with another hedge fund manager in his role as a so-called “activist investor” (and in so doing, skirting key securities laws while holding a metaphorical gun to a target company’s head).