'Well, when did you buy it?'"

Today: "I obviously made a big mistake not saying, 'Well, when did you buy it?'" Mr. Buffett said.
March 30: Statement announces Mr. Sokol's resignation, Mr. Buffett had said he and Mr. Sokol didn't regard the Lubrizol trades as "in any way unlawful."

What is interesting is that if I were to pick sides, and given what I hear about Mungers trades...I would believe that Warren really did not care too much about when the shares were purchased. In fact, given Warren's style I would think that he would like to invest in companies that his guys put their own money into. Perhaps he could try to explain it just like the US bankcorp shares (among others) that he does not want to mark-to-market because - "he can afford to hold them for a long time and what he holds usually goes up".

The world is full of a lot of funny hypocrisies and Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger have quite a lot of them...A persons ability to hold a security for a long time has nothing to do with what its worth even if one were to think its worth more than the market does. Why should people expect special rules? I think that many of the higher-ups are Berkshire Hathaway, expect special rules and expect to do business their way. The Berkshire way. However, it appears that all of the sudden Warren Buffett does not approve of the public image that some of those methods have brought and has chosen Sokol's reputation, as opposed to his own, to risk.

I bet that this is not the last we hear about officials at Berkshire buying stock in firms that subsequently get purchased by the company prior to the deal being consummated.