A Delaware court has ruled in favor of eBay in its 2008 lawsuit against Jim Buckmaster and Craig Newmark, majority shareholders of Craigslist, eBay said Thursday.
EBay acquired a minority stake in Craigslist in 2004, but in 2008 it sued Buckmaster and Newmark, charging that they had engaged in transactions that benefited themselves at the expense of eBay. Buckmaster is the CEO of Craigslist and Newmark is its founder. They called the lawsuit "unethical" in a blog post in 2008.
Chancellor William Chandler of the Delaware Court of Chancery ruled in eBay's favor and overturned a series of unlawful transactions that diluted its share in Craigslist. Specifically, Chandler's ruling rescinded "a poison pill and right of first refusal" that were adopted by Buckmaster and Newmark in 2008, eBay said in a news release on Thursday. It also said the ruling reinstated eBay's 28.4 per cent share in the company. A poison pill is a financial arrangement usually intended to make a potential hostile takeover less attractive to the acquirer.
Craigslist representatives could not immediately be reached for comment.