Goldman Sachs hires law firm to shut blogger’s site
Goldman Sachs is attempting to shut down a dissident blogger who is extremely critical of the investment bank, its board members and its practices.
The New York headquarters of Goldman Sachs, which has instructed a Wall Street law firm to tell a blogger to stop criticising the bank
By James Quinn, Wall Street Correspondent
The bank has instructed Wall Street law firm Chadbourne & Parke to pursue blogger Mike Morgan, warning him in a recent cease-and-desist letter that he may face legal action if he does not close down his website.
Florida-based Mr Morgan began a blog entitled “Facts about Goldman Sachs” – the web address for which is goldmansachs666.com – just a few weeks ago.
In that time Mr Morgan, a registered investment adviser, has added a number of posts to the site, including one entitled “Does Goldman Sachs run the world?”. However, many of the posts relate to other Wall Street firms and issues.According to Chadbourne & Parke’s letter, dated April 8, the bank is rattled because the site “violates several of Goldman Sachs’ intellectual property rights” and also “implies a relationship” with the bank itself.
Unsurprisingly for a man who has conjoined the bank’s name with the Number of the Beast – although he jokingly points out that 666 was also the S&P500’s bear-market bottom – Mr Morgan is unlikely to go down without a fight.
He claims he has followed all legal requirements to own and operate the website – and that the header of the site clearly states that the content has not been approved by the bank.
On a special section of his blog entitled “Goldman Sachs vs Mike Morgan” he predicts that the fight will probably end up in court.
“It’s just another example of how a bully like Goldman Sachs tries to throw their weight around,” he writes.
Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, Mr Morgan explained how he went through a similar battle with US homebuilder Lennar a few years ago after he set up a website to collect information on what he alleged was shoddy workmanship in its homes. The pair eventually settled out of court.
“Since I went through this with Lennar, I’ve had advice from some of the best intellectual property lawyers, and I know exactly what I can and can’t do. We’re not going to back down from this,” he promises.
Mr Morgan adds that if Goldman manages to shut down his site, he has a number of other domain names registered.
• Speculation is mounting that Goldman Sachs is set to raise several billion dollars via a share sale, possibly next week, in order to pay down a $10bn (£6.8bn) US government loan, as revealed in The Sunday Telegraph last week.
