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Pastimes : Business Wire Falls for April Fools Prank, Sues FBNers -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jeffrey S. Mitchell who wrote (3701)	3/28/2000 6:07:00 PM
From: Arcane Lore	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 3795

Business Wire's Mr. Lokey says he's not familiar with the Uniprime case, but says the wire service carefully screens press releases before they're distributed. "We don't just sit still. I can tell you that anyone in the future that moves a false story on our wire is going to get sued and we're going to win it," says Mr. Lokey. We probably do as well or better a job of weeding out this stuff than The Wall Street Journal does," he says. Message 12211338 This related item may also be of interest to BusinessWire and Mr. Lokey: U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION Litigation Release No. 16484 / March 24, 2000 SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION v. eCONNECT AND THOMAS S. HUGHES, Civil Action No. CV 00 02959 AHM (C.D. Cal.) The Securities and Exchange Commission ("Commission") announced that on March 24, 2000, the Honorable Margaret M. Morrow, United States District Judge for the Central District of California, issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting eConnect, a publicly traded corporation, and its president, Thomas S. Hughes ("Hughes"), from committing violations of the antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws. Hughes and eConnect consented to the temporary restraining order, which will expire after sixty days at or before which time the Court will hear the Commission's request for a preliminary injunction. The Commission's complaint, filed on March 23, alleges that since February 28, 2000, eConnect has issued false and misleading press releases claiming: (1) eConnect and its joint venture partner had a unique licensing arrangement with PalmPilot; and (2) a subsidiary of eConnect had a strategic alliance with a brokerage firm concerning a system that would permit cash transactions over the Internet. In fact, eConnect has no licensing arrangement whatsoever with Palm, Inc., and the "strategic alliance" is no more than a letter of intent between a brokerage and a joint venture partner of eConnect. The complaint further alleges that the fraudulent press releases, which were disseminated through a wire service as well as by postings on internet bulletin boards, caused a dramatic rise in the price of eConnect stock from $1.39 on February 28 to a high of $21.88 on March 9, 2000, on heavy trading volume. The Commission suspended trading in eConnect's stock on March 13. The complaint alleges that despite the trading suspension and the Commission's related investigation, eConnect and Hughes continued to issue false and misleading statements concerning eConnect's business opportunities. The Commission obtained an order temporarily restraining eConnect and Hughes committed from committing securities fraud in violation of Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 ("Exchange Act") and Rule 10b-5 thereunder. In addition to the interim relief granted today, the Commission seeks a final judgment against eConnect and Hughes enjoining them from future violations of Section 10(b) of the Exchange Act and Rule 10b-5 thereunder and assessing civil penalties against them. sec.gov Last update: 03/24/2000 Any guesses as to which wire service is referred to in the litigation release? From siliconinvestor.com siliconinvestor.com it appears to be BusinessWire.

To: Jeffrey S. Mitchell who wrote (3701)	3/28/2000 7:27:00 PM
From: Marshall	Respond to of 3795

Priceless, where have we heard those words before? :-) "Business Wire's Mr. Lokey says he's not familiar with the Uniprime case, ....."

To: Jeffrey S. Mitchell who wrote (3701)	3/31/2000 8:31:00 AM
From: Andrew Vance	Respond to of 3795

I have two questions for you. 1. How would I go about getting the necessary paperwork to fill out for a Business Wire release? I want to publish the RadarView gains for the quarter which were stupendous, especially saince we are well positioned for any recovery that might start over the next few sessions. 2. While trying to catch up on Stock Swap and other threads, I was alerted to an inconsistency. I was so hoping that you benefitted from the IARC run up into the 20s since I remember reading that if and when IARC (ALYD) fell below $2, you would be betting the farm on it again. That was the only reason I made the comment. Did you not get into the stock when it fell below $2? Or did you enter and then quickly exit before the massive run up? I was just curious since this was your feature stock for so long and I was really hoping it would finally pay off for you. BTW - the Business Wire request is real. I need to do more marketing since I was sent 2 interesting articles that suggest email targeted advertsing provdes a step function improvement in subscriptions. news.cnet.com Then again, I might need to lay low until the Tokyo Joe stuff quiets down. He is noew claiming that all charges should be dropped since he is a newsletter writer and is not subjected to the whims of the SEC. news.cnet.com AV

To: Jeffrey S. Mitchell who wrote (3701)	4/4/2000 10:12:00 PM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 3795

Interesting possibility: can somebody who lost money in E-connect sue Business Wire because they have publicly stated that they screen what they put on their site, thereby creating a contractual expectation, and when they moved an obviously false press release they breached that contract? It would be a fun lawsuit! Would smoke out BW in a big way, demanding copies of all press releases and statements they have made about the integrity of their service. Hmmm -- anybody have $100,000 they want to throw my way to pursue the suit for them??