MySpace execs facing lawsuit over sale to News Corp

Accused of defrauding shareholders

4 August 2008 13:20 GMT / By Katie Scott

Shareholders who claim that they were ripped off when MySpace when sold to News Corp in 2005 are taking their battle to court.

MySpace, and its parent company Intermix, had tried to get the lawsuit thrown out.

But now a US federal judge ruled against a motion to dismiss it.

Judge George King, of the Central District of California, rejected several counts of a motion by defendants to dismiss the lawsuit.

The lawsuit will now see ex-senior executives and directors of Intermix, and its venture capital backer VantagePoint Venture Partners, hauled into court accused of defrauding shareholders of billions of dollars by engineering the $580 million sale of Intermix to News Corp.

"I knew that the value of the company was billions of dollars, however the deceptive practice of hiding MySpace financials by Intermix management robbed shareholders of their opportunity to adequately gauge the company's value", Brad Greenspan, former chairman of eUniverse, which was renamed Intermix, said in a statement on Thursday.

The suit names former Intermix chief executive Richard Rosenblatt, former president Brett Brewer, and VantagePoint.

Reuters says that Rosenblatt declined to comment, while Brewer could not be reached.

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