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After Bankrupting Gawker, Peter Thiel Demands a Chance to Buy Them (buzzfeed.com)
An anonymous reader quotes BuzzFeed:
In a federal bankruptcy court filing on Wednesday, lawyers for venture capitalist Peter Thiel objected to the ongoing sale process of Gawker.com, arguing that the billionaire has been unfairly excluded from bidding for the assets of the defunct news website... Whoever ends up buying the site will also buy its archives, which are still up, and will have the right to do with them what they want, including delete them. In the filing, Thiel's lawyers allege that he was prevented from receiving information in regard to a potential bid for Gawker.com by plan administrator William Holden and his counsel, Gregg Galardi, following a Wall Street Journal story in October that said Holden and Galardi had started to market the website to potential buyers...
The Wall Street Journal reported that Holden has been exploring the sale of Gawker.com since July, and that he recently marketed the site's potential legal claims against Thiel as part of its appeal. The marketing of those claims is at the center of Thiel's complaint, in which his lawyers argue that Holden should not be able to conduct a sale of those claims and ask that the court drop a motion that allows for discovery to move forward. Thiel's representatives also said that they contacted those administrating the sale of Gawker.com last month "to express Mr. Thiel's interest in participating in the sale process," but that they had been rebuffed and then ignored.
Thiel's complaint calls him the "most able and logical purchaser."
The Wall Street Journal reported that Holden has been exploring the sale of Gawker.com since July, and that he recently marketed the site's potential legal claims against Thiel as part of its appeal. The marketing of those claims is at the center of Thiel's complaint, in which his lawyers argue that Holden should not be able to conduct a sale of those claims and ask that the court drop a motion that allows for discovery to move forward. Thiel's representatives also said that they contacted those administrating the sale of Gawker.com last month "to express Mr. Thiel's interest in participating in the sale process," but that they had been rebuffed and then ignored.
Thiel's complaint calls him the "most able and logical purchaser."
The argument to be made to a bankruptcy judge will likely be that if Thiel is willing to pay more than anyone else then it should be sold to him so that money can be used to settle Gawker's outstanding debts. Barring him from the bidding may reduce the amount paid and thus harm the creditors.
I do find myself wondering every time I see him mentioned whether Thiel actually has any redeeming qualities at all.
fencepost
just a little off
You are not wrong here. Indeed, Thiel never accused Gawker of slandering anybody.
WTF? Thiel was openly gay years before Gawker first heard of him... Get your alternative facts closer to reality.
"Revenge porn" is nearly always true as well — the videos and photos are unaltered. Is it Ok to do it? How about "doxing"?
His revenge campaign is complete — he caused the assholes to run into the ground. He just wants to piss at their crash-site. To "thwart" him, you have to offer the Gawker's creditors a deal better than Thiel is offering. Pony up the cash, or shut up.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Microsoft perfected that process back in the day. They'd make a great offer for a company's technology. Microsoft would agree to buy X units, at a price very profitable to the company, after they made a few improvements or integrations with Microsoft's other software. Of course, the target company wasn't allowed to sell to anyone else during that period. In the fine print Microsoft would get right of first refusal if the company was ever sold.
The company would work to make the improvements and integrations Microsoft asked for, unable to take any other customers during that time. When it came time for Microsoft to accept delivery, they'd sit on it for a month and not reply. Then they'd decline delivery, asking for more changes. When that run-around finally ended they'd eventually have to accept delivery, so then they sit in making the payment. Sometimes the contract might call for a late fee, which doesn't matter when they aren't paying anyway. A year after the contract was signed, without being allowed to sell to any other customers and having not been paid by Microsoft, the company would go under. The owners might well be behind on their mortgage at this point. That's when Microsoft would offer to buy the company for a pittance. They did the same dance over and over again.
The anger directed at Thiel over the Gawker case is reminiscent of the anger about the DNC's hacked emails. Those who are angry completely overlook that if Gawker/the DNC hadn't done anything wrong, there wouldn't have been any fallout in the first place. Gawker never would've been sued for publishing Bollea's sex tape. There would've been no evidence of the Democratic party leadership tampering with the primary process. They don't want to hear the message, so they do their best to ignore it and try to shoot the messenger.
If Thiel had bought judges to engineer some grave miscarriage of justice, I'd have some sympathy for Gawker. But the fundamental truth is most people don't think the right to a free press includes the right to publicize a sex tape recorded without consent. Literally everyone can see themselves somehow winding up in Bollea's (Hulk Hogan's) situation, and they do not want anyone, even the press, to have the right to publicize that tape without their consent. That, plain and simple, is why Gawker lost in a jury trial. That's what bankrupted them, not Thiel helping pay for the lawsuit.
If you don't want to be bankrupted, don't do stupid, illegal, or ethically questionable things which could bankrupt you. This above all: to thine own self be true. Follow that rule and the only thing you have to worry about is being framed. I think Wikileaks is biased and disagree with its MO, but that doesn't mean I automatically side with the people whose stupid, illegal, or ethically questionable secrets Wikileaks reveals. On the contrary I usually think those people are despicable for doing those stupid, illegal, or ethically questionable things.