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Pastimes : Investment Chat Board Lawsuits -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jeffrey S. Mitchell who wrote (253)	5/15/2000 4:53:00 AM
From: Jeffrey S. Mitchell	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12465

Re: Lawsuit Over Web Posting (OWC) October 28, 1999 Lawsuit Over Web Posting By BENJAMIN WEISER This much is known: A lawsuit was filed this week in Federal District Court in Manhattan. But no one knows who was sued. Not yet, anyway. The unusual case was brought by Owens Corning, the building products company best known for its pink fiberglass insulation. In the lawsuit, filed on Tuesday, Owens Corning says it was libeled by an unknown person purporting to be the company's chairman, who posted a message on an Internet bulletin board maintained by Yahoo and devoted to discussion about the company. The lawsuit, filed against "John Doe," claims the fake message hurt the company's reputation with stock analysts and traders on Wall Street, as well as the company's shareholders. The message is written in the name of the company's chairman and chief executive, Glen H. Hiner, who appears to respond to earlier criticism from shareholders. In one place, the message quotes him as making critical remarks about shareholders. In another, it quotes him as saying, "So what if I have padded the board with my cronies." It also quotes Hiner as saying that Owens Corning, which has defended thousands of lawsuits from people over exposure to asbestos products that the company once made, has "the fix in with 88 percent of the plaintiffs' attorneys." The message, which was posted at 4:54 P.M. on Sept. 26, drew angry responses from shareholders, the suit said, who apparently believed it was genuine. The case is one of a number of John Doe suits that have been brought by companies that contend that their reputations were damaged in anonymous Internet messages, said Floyd Abrams, the lawyer who specializes in First Amendment issues. Abrams, who said he was not familiar with the Owens Corning suit and was speaking only generally, said some companies appeared to be using the civil legal process to silence their critics, particularly employees who might be posting the anonymous messages. "It's been happening a lot in the last eight or nine months," Abrams said. "It's often been the case that the only purpose of a number of these lawsuits has been to find out the identify of the critical employee." Two lawyers for Owens Corning, William I. Sussman and Nelson A. Boxer, declined to elaborate on the lawsuit, except to say that it was not filed to stifle dissent but rather, as Boxer put it, because "someone anonymously went on the Internet, on the bulletin board, purporting to be the C.E.O. and making derogatory statements about the company's stockholders and how the company's being run." He said the company "never has had any strategy about trying to stifle any kind of discussions and public statements on the Internet." Under the law, Yahoo, like other companies that run such bulletin boards, was immune from suit. An official with Yahoo, Mike Riley, a senior producer, said he could not comment on the specific case but that generally, Yahoo, under its strict privacy policy, "will not release any identifying information about our users without their consent, unless we're legally compelled to do so." Such compulsion, he said, "usually comes in the form of a subpoena." Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company nytimes.com

To: Jeffrey S. Mitchell who wrote (253)	8/23/2000 12:37:43 AM
From: Jeffrey S. Mitchell	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12465

Re: 8/20/00 - Calif. Wins Against Phony MGM CEO Calif. Wins Against Phony MGM CEO Associated Press Last Updated: Aug. 20, 2000 at 2:10:40 a.m. LOS ANGELES - A man accused of posing as a former executive of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. on an Internet message board has been ordered to post a message on the same board under a new name - ``Retraction.'' The California Department of Corporations, which regulates securities trading, won a settlement Tuesday with Victor Idrovo, a Manhattan Beach investor accused of posting fraudulent messages to influence the stock price of MGM. The state alleged that Idrovo posted two messages in 1999 in a Yahoo! message board devoted to discussing the stock of MGM. Idrovo used the Internet nickname ``FrankGMancuso,'' leading others to believe he was the former chairman and chief executive officer of MGM. Mancuso is still on the company's board of directors. One message, posted last April, seemed designed to get investors to buy the stock. It was headlined ``Kirk says $24 a share'' and led investors to believe that ``Mancuso'' had inside information from Kirk Kerkorian, MGM's majority stockholder. At the time the message was posted, MGM stock was trading around $15 per share. A second message, posted in October, was headed ``Let the selling begin'' at a time when the stock was trading at slightly over $20 per share. Neither message succeeded in moving MGM stock significantly and state regulators say Idrovo did not profit from the trading he was doing at the time of his postings. ``That's not the point,'' said Marc Crandall, lead counsel of Internet Compliance and Enforcement. ``It caused a lot of problems on the message boards and we don't think it should be tolerated.'' Crandall said Idrovo cooperated in the inquiry, as did Yahoo! and MGM. MGM issued a brief statement saying it would cooperate with any other state or federal investigations of the matter. ``This successful legal action should send a clear message to others who try to manipulate stock prices, particularly short sellers, by spreading false information,'' the statement read. Tuesday's settlement does not require Idrovo to admit or deny any wrongdoing. The state won an injunction barring Idrovo from posting any more fraudulent messages. In addition, Idrovo must pay the state $4,500 in fines and costs. He must also post a message on the same Yahoo! chat board under the Internet nickname, ``Retraction.'' jsonline.com