Goldman Sachs Threatens Blogger With Legal Action
By BRIAN BAXTER
Incisive Media
Less than a week before posting first-quarter earnings of $1.8 billion, Goldman Sachs’ outside lawyers at Chadbourne & Parke sent a no-nonsense cease-and-desist letter to the blogger behind goldmansachs666.com, warning that legal action would commence if the site didn’t remove the Goldman name.
The site — the brainchild of Mike Morgan, a Jensen Beach, Fla.-based investment adviser and real estate broker -- includes short posts and links to conspiracy-tinged stories that suggest Goldman uses its influence and power for nefarious means.
“People don’t realize how much Goldman Sachs has infiltrated the world of politics and finance,” says Morgan, explaining why he launched the site on March 25. “I wanted [my blog] to be a place to pull together all that scattered information.”
And he’s intent on keeping it that way. Last week, Morgan filed a six-page complaint against the bank in U.S. district court in Fort Pierce, Fla., claiming that Goldman is trying to silence him.
Morgan has posted a disclaimer on the blog disavowing any relationship or affiliation with Goldman. But the disclaimer appears to have been published after Morgan received the cease-and-desist letter. Asked whether the disclaimer renders the trademark issue moot, a Goldman spokeswoman declined to comment.
Morgan remains defiant. He’s battled corporate adversaries before, and he’s got the litigation scars to prove it. In June 2006, Morgan unveiled a web site called defective-homes.net, a repository of information and complaints about homes built by Miami-based Lennar Corp. Lennar sued Morgan in state and federal court in Florida, accusing him of trademark infringement and spreading false information about the quality of the company’s construction methods. After two years of litigation, Morgan settled out of court with Lennar when the company threatened further litigation in 14 other states.
If Lennar was too much for Morgan to handle, Goldman figures to be an even more formidable adversary. “We’re going to need money to keep [the site] going, but I can’t collect donations from it because then it would be commercial use,” says Morgan, noting that was a problem in the Lennar case.
Meantime, Morgan says Goldman’s actions have inspired him to recruit volunteers to build a more comprehensive homepage for goldmansachs666.com, which he claims gets between “1,000 and 1,500 unique visitors an hour.” In the end, Morgan says, the dispute will not become “Mike Morgan against Goldman Sachs.” •
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