How Ethical is Meg Whitman?
Written by Bruce Little on April 6th, 2010In April 2005, Meg Whitman, CEO of eBay, settled a case in which she and others had been charged with “spinning” initial public offerings (IPOs) that had been made available to her at a discount by Goldman Sachs in exchange for Goldman getting eBay’s investment banking business. “Spinning” is obtaining shares of stock in start-up companies’ IPOs at a discount.
Whitman and co-defendants Pierre Omidyar and Jeffrey Skoll agreed to disgorge their profits and pay $3 million (Whitman’s share was $1.78 million) into an eBay fund that was supplemented by a payment of $395,000 from Goldman Sachs.
The practice is now expressly illegal because it was deemed to be theft by favoritism. Just one more reason why Meg Whitman is unfit to hold public office.
