However, the suit found no takers, likely because few litigation financiers would want to fund a case against a billionaire… for financing litigation. However philanthropic your intention, and careful the planning, the details of your involvement will be gruesome.” “We, and those you have sent into battle against us, have been stripped naked, our texts, online chats and finances revealed through the press and the courts in the next phase, you too will be subject to a dose of transparency. Denton clearly relished the potential for an opportunity to do to Thiel what Thiel had done to him, writing in a blog post addressed directly to Thiel. The only reason for that was Peter Thiel’s deliberate interference.Īs The Wall Street Journal reported in May, the claims were explored, as was a potential shopping of those claims to contingency lawyers or litigation financiers. The argument: Gawker Media was at one point worth close to $300M, and it had sold for less than half that after the trial. Holden believed that Denton and Gawker had legitimate claims against Thiel for tortiously interfering with Gawker’s business. The domain itself was potentially not the most valuable of the company’s possessions. William Holden, a restructuring and turnaround specialist, was hired by Gawker in early summer of 2016 to navigate the liquidation of the company’s assets. Navigating the Liquidation of Gawker’s Assets The sale of Gawker’s remaining assets is essentially the last remaining piece of business between all parties. Univision did not purchase the domain, given its controversy and potential liability, and as part of the $31 million dollar settlement with Thiel and Bollea, Hulk Hogan became the largest creditor of Gawker’s bankruptcy estate. They were forced to find a buyer for Gawker Media (Univision, for $135M) and to come to a settlement with Thiel and Hulk Hogan. The case took a wild turn when Thiel’s role in the lawsuit was unmasked by Forbes and The New York Times in May 2016, but it was too late for Gawker. Short of the cash, Nick Denton and Gawker were forced to declare bankruptcy. ” The verdict came back after less than six hours: $140 million dollars for Hulk Hogan-including $60 million for the infliction of emotional distress.ĭue to a quirk in Florida law, appealing such a large verdict would have required Gawker to post a $50 million dollar bond. “They were in my ring,” Hogan told me when I interviewed him for my book on Thiel’s war with Gawker. Gawker did not take the Hogan case seriously, seeming to assume it would eventually settle as the lawsuit filed by actor Eric Dane and Rebecca Gayhart had, and its leadership was caught off guard in 2016 when they found themselves in front of six ordinary Pinellas County, Florida jurors.
#New gawker site professional#
In 2012, he hired Charles Harder (now the attorney for President Donald Trump) to begin filing cases against Gawker, the first of which was a $100 million dollar lawsuit on behalf of Terry Bollea (AKA Hulk Hogan), after Gawker published a stolen sex tape of the former professional wrestler.įor the next several years this case, and a few others, wound their way through the legal system without much fanfare. If I may review: Starting in 2011, Thiel began researching and covertly funding litigation aimed at the “destruction” of Gawker, in retaliation for outing him as gay and for what he believed was the generally cruel and bullying coverage of the site.
Conspicuously absent at the auction will be the two clashing personalities who brought it there, Gawker founder and owner Nick Denton, and the billionaire Peter Thiel, who orchestrated the secret, nearly decade-long conspiracy against Gawker that killed it.
Gawker’s sale will mark the symbolic end of the bankruptcy-induced purgatory where the former independent media brand has spent the last 24 months. Will it be purchased as some kind of relic of a bygone era of the internet? Possessed by a philanthropist or a sworn enemy? Will an upstart publisher try to turn it into something new? Will a major media empire buy it and try to put flesh back on the bones and revive the corpse?
#New gawker site archive#
The auction in the offices of Ropes & Gray LLP in New York City for the remains of Gawker-which include more than 50 domain names, an archive of some 200,000 articles, a handful of social media accounts with roughly 2 million combined followers, the copyright to a book published in 2007, Gawker’s trademarks and some miscellaneous sub-blogs-will determine what’s to become of the fallen blogging powerhouse. On Thursday, July 12, a locker containing the bones of -killed in action, as it were, for its publication of a fully nude sextape of the wrestler Hulk Hogan-will be up for auction to the highest bidder. After Univision purchased Gawker Media, Hulk Hogan became the largest creditor of Gawker’s bankruptcy estate.
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