Gawker Can’t Shield Founder from Hulk Hogan Sex-Tape Verdict | Hacker News Reader

Gawker Can’t Shield Founder from Hulk Hogan Sex-Tape Verdict

bloomberg.com

60 pointsacdanger99 comments

Wow. I wonder if Thiel calculated the exact amount it would take to put Gawker out of business AND send Denton into personal bankruptcy. I mean, as a venture capitalist, you have pretty good insight into the finances of companies at a macro level. You're used to doing a little bit of "estimation from the outside", i.e. for both potential investments and for competitors. And he was also a lawyer.

This is the most ruthless revenge story ever, not least because it was all legal...

Thiel seems like a nerdy and curious fellow -- almost gentle, if he weren't so opinionated. But I guess everyone now knows not to mess with him.

He seems like a real asshole to me. Nothing I have read about him has given me the impression that there is anything gentle about him at all.

Actually, Gawker and Denton are the assholes. When confronting assholes, it's easy to be mis-perceived as one.

You say "actually" as if you're trying to correct me in some way...

Were you talking about Thiel or Denton? It seems like you were talking about Thiel, so yes, I was correcting you.

That's rather presumptuous of you. Denton being an asshole in no way precludes Thiel from being an asshole.

Isn't it equally presumptuous of you to assume that he is? Your only source of evidence is his financing of an aggressive lawsuit against a known asshole and his company.

Maybe I think Thiel is an asshole because of his funding of Palantir?

Thiel's explanation is that it was better to sift through the data torrent more judiciously than collecting every particle of data on every man, women and child forever. That is relevant surveillance on a limited pool vs mass surveillance. Supposing a state to be malevolent, then an efficient malevolent state ought to be still less evil than an inefficient malevolent one.

This was in the context of the sentiment after 9/11.

Unfortunately it later turns out the government with its god-like power of 'infinite money' decided to do both at the same time, which explains his disgust at the NSA post-Snowden.

Surely a giant database in the sky could never fall into enemy hands with data transfer and data medium densities growing exponentially.

In the future, wars shall be lost because some dork left a usb drive on a train somewhere.

Careful -he might sue you next, apparently he's sue-crazy!

How does that work out? Isn't it a limited liability company? I know there's "piercing the corporate veil", but why would that apply in this case?

Denton was apparently named as a defendant in the lawsuit as well, and the court yielded a $10M judgment against him personally.

Gawker also gave Denton a $200K personal loan right before bankruptcy for the purposes of potential bankruptcy filings related to the lawsuit; this might be a good case for piercing the corporate veil as well.

Is Denton a complete moron to think this was going to be OK. Given the way Gawker ran the court case the evidence is piling up that Denton is not the smartest tool in the shed.

I think it may be that he got away with it for a decade, and so it became normalized in his head. For the rest of us, Gawker was a lawsuit waiting to happen; for him, it was literally business as usual.

The court case has not concluded.

A gay, foreign media magnate known for publishing lurid expose (in addition to a lot of excellent and funny reporting [1]) was never likely to receive sympathetic treatment from a jury of people from Hulk Hogan's hometown.

Let's see how things go on appeal.

[1] http://gawker.com/heres-what-gawker-media-does-1779858799

Is anyone in a position to appeal? I was under the impression that Gawker had to cough up a huge amount of cash to be able to appeal.

They were trying to seek some money to cover the $50M in collateral that would be required for appeal (to be held in trust).

Even at this stage, Gawker/Denton offered Bollea shares in Gawker from their expected sale, _and_ Bollea _accepted_.

And then withdrew. I can't help but suspect if it was because Thiel's lawyers advised him not to, the same way they dropped the tort that was covered by Gawker's insurance.

I find this interesting too - it was one thing when it was just that insurance claim. Then Hogan is willing to accept collateral from Gawker's prospective sale (indicating it's not him that's looking for Gawker's abject destruction), but lawyers, funded by Thiel, have him drop this, too.

I think one of the fundamental tenets of justice (and to be quite clear, I feel Denton and Gawker both deserve to be reamed - for varying severities of the word - for their actions in this case) is the right to face your "accuser"/opponent. Not what looks more and more to me like their puppet.

Gawker had indemnified Denton before this lawsuit came to pass, agreeing to cover legal costs related to Denton being personally sued in matters that related to Gawker.

I think other comments here implying there's some looting going on are not quite on point.

Limited liability doesn't apply apply to torts committed by company officers.

The "Limited" in an LLC means that an investor in the company cannot lose more than the capital they've invested. It doesn't do anything to protect officers.

For that matter, I'm not sure how he can sell the company without the court verdict being part of the debt in order to purchase/sell the company.

The proceeds of the sale in bankruptcy go to the company's creditors of which Hogan is the largest

Ok but...meanwhile on Wall St. individuals can't be held accountable for corporate actions.

bernie madoff? I think he went to jail

Just Google "arrested for ponzi fraud' ...tons of results. Alan Stanford..another one. High profile and wealthy are not immune to the long arm of justice. Martin Shkreli (pending)..Bernard Ebbers..Andrew Fastow ..many more

They could have been held accountable. But the government had to make a choice.

(a) Settle and get home loan relief and other measures in place immediately for struggling families.

(b) Engage in possibly a decade long, expensive fight that they might not be able to win.

And this creates the moral hazard of to big to fail banks.

When you try to fix a drug addicts problem, you don't just fix the symptom, but also must fix the cause. It's not too dissimilar for societal problems imho.

If Denton secured money overseas, collecting will be hard

Funny thing is Gawker gave secret $200K Loan to Nick Denton before bankruptcy.

Secret? Gawker is private. My private employer doesn't disclose employee loans, why should any other?

Further replying since the sibling is dead:

"First, Gawker has indemnified Denton, meaning that it has agreed to pay his legal tab. So theoretically, a judgment against Denton becomes Gawker's liability. But Hogan says that this indemnification agreement specifically precludes anything Denton does that constitutes misconduct or gross negligence. Hogan asserts that what the jury in the sex-tape case concluded qualifies as such and means Denton isn't indemnified. And even if otherwise, Hogan still doesn't believe this merits an injunction."

It's definitely not proven problematic. Of course Hogan's lawyers are complaining about it, but it's not contentious that Gawker had indemnification in place.

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