Monday, May 5, 2008

E-Bay v. Craigslist

The legal dispute between the companies is whether Kijiji, eBay's classified ads site, engages in a competative activity with Craigslist, which eBay owns 24% of as a result of a purchase of stock from a former Craigslist executive. Because of the launch of Kijiji in 2007, Jim Buckmaster said, "We are no longer comfortable having eBay as a shareholder, and wish to explore options for our repurchase." After that, according to the complaint filed by eBay, Craigslist founder Craig Newmark and Buckmaster "engaged in a series of clandestine transactions designed to ensure that eBay would not be able to elect a director, and to either impose new transfer restrictions on eBay or dilute its interests, and to dilute the interest of the employee holders of company stock options."

The complaint is here.

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