It looks as if another step has been taken in what has been a long process for shareholder Michael Hartlieb. Mr. Hartlieb has formed an organization called “Save Sirius”, and has now filed a suit in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. The suit accuses management of violating the federal Racketeering-Influenced and Corrupt Organizations act, breach of fiduciary duty, and violation of the Sherman Act.

Mr. Hartlieb has been vocal on various situations with regard to Sirius, XM, and the merger for a few years now, and up until recently has been acting on his own with regard to his various concerns. Now, it appears that he has formed an organization of about 500 shareholders that have joined him in his efforts.

According to a press release issued today, which this publication had no prior knowledge of, the current effort is to stop a potential vote at the Sirius XM annual meeting to be held December 18th, on increasing the fully diluted share count to 8 billion, as well on a vote regarding a potential reverse split.

In a statement from the press release, Michael Hartlieb said, “We are working to gain control of our company by seeking to remove current members of the board as well as top executive Mel Karmazin.”

The press release, as well as the lawsuit, outline what can only be termed as some serious accusations. This publication has seen no “smoking gun” that directly ties the company to certain activities listed in the complaint. There is indeed a lot of circumstantial points that could be theorized about, but whether the theory translates to reality, or can be proven is another matter altogether.

Some of what is alleged as a breach of fiduciary duty simply boils down to a matter of debate.

Save Sirius complains about Sirius XM’s “history of locking their shareholders into the longest merger delay in history,” as well as its “preventing the corporation from seeking alternatives or potential suitors.” The flip side of the argument is that there was no way to know that the merger would become as long and drawn out as it did, and that the best situation would be for a merger of all of the spectrum (between Sirius and XM), rather than one company being absorbed into a mega company such as Google.

Fiduciary duties are a huge responsibility, and any company can only act on what they know at any given point in time. What transpired in the markets over the past few months was likely beyond what almost anyone would have imagined. Personally, the company going private at low level prices such as we currently have is a large concern of mine. There are shareholders who would be hurt by this happening, but there are also shareholders who would benefit.