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ebaY Violates Trade Rules |
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: D. Mark Katz
August 18, 2002 858-587-9210
EBAY VIOLATES RESTRAINT OF TRADE
Ebay Officers Dump Stock Valued at $852.4 Million
San Diego, CA - With the stock market being manipulated recently, new information sheds light on the volatile position of publicly traded Ebay stock. The President and Chief Executive Officer of the Internet auction site, eBay.com; Margaret C. Whitman has been dumping stock faster than Ken Lay at Enron. Between December 19, 2001 and May 8, 2002, Ms. Whitman has sold-off 13,049,536 shares of stock. At $56 a share, that comes to more than $730 million. Ms. Whitman has a 6% ownership in the company. This information can be verified at http://biz.yahoo.com/t/e/ebay.html. Other officers in the company are just as greedy. The founder and Chairman, Pierre Omidyar has sold off 443,800 shares since 11-21, netting him a healthy $24.85 million. The Chief Financial Officer, Rajiv Dutta has sold 180,000 shares making him a cool $10.08 million. Maynard Webb, the Chief Operating Officer has sold off 436,600 shares netting him $24.44 million. General Counsel, Michael R. Jacobson has dumped 144,998 shares making him $8.119 million – not bad for a hungry young lawyer. Jeff Jordan, a Senior Vice President and General Manager has dumped 199,992 shares of stock valued at $11.19 million. Senior Vice President of Ebay International, Matthew J. Bannick has sold 144,998 shares netting him a cool $8.119 million. And finally, a “Beneficial Owner,” Jeffrey Skoll dumped 622,000 shares of stock in two days in April netting him a whopping $32.9 million.
That’s not all. Ebay employees are violating Restraint of Trade laws on a regular basis. An Ebay Gold Powerseller, a member since 1997 was just permanently suspended from the site. Ebay claims that the seller was suspended for violating their rules on “abusive treatment of eBay employees” and for other “chronic violations.” This is absolutely untrue; “I was doing nothing more than complaining to them about the failure of their software over two straight days and was obviously upset - two eBay employees confirmed that fact. Their contention about chronic violations is nothing more than smoke and mirrors to cover-up for their excessive acts of ineptness,” said D. Mark Katz, the suspended Powerseller. “I paid eBay more than $25,000 in fees last year. If you disagree with them, they suspend you. If you criticize them, they permanently suspend you.” Additionally, eBay knowingly tolerates fraudulent material being sold on their site and they facilitate copyright infringement as well.
Rosalinda Baldwin at The Auction Guild (TAG) agrees. “EBay was created by a community of people based on the notion that since they were a community, they would labor on behalf of the community and all benefit from the success of eBay. Instead,” she said, “ eBay exploited the community, and turned it into a commodity, to be slaughtered like sheep as eBay saw fit. The concept the community held, was of a global marketplace where every player, rich or poor, advantaged or disadvantaged, able bodied or not, regardless of any of the factors that act as discriminators in society, would get to play on a level playing field,” argued Ms. Baldwin. “It was created, not by Pierre Omyidar and not by eBay, but by the community that built eBay, one person at a time. EBay is a travesty of that community ideal, a company whose only goal is to make as much money possible in the shortest amount of time to make a few people obscenely wealthy. It chatters about the community in order to keep its stock price artificially tempting, all the while destroying the lives and livelihood of any who dare to expose the rot behind the shiny facade.” Her outstanding editorial, “Is eBay an Enron Waiting to Happen,” can be seen at her Website at: http://www.auctionguild.com/generic81.html or contact Ms. Baldwin at 877 (SAFETAG) 723-3824.
