Among of the most common questions I get from other lawyers in my firm have to do with privacy issues that crop up in mergers and acquisitions. A purchaser wants to buy a business that includes reams of employee information and, often, significant quantities of customer information. Most businesses hold mundane personal information, but some are more exotic ...
Boing Boing, which truly is a directory of wonderful (and weird and unsual and interesting) things, has linked to an interesting auction on eBay. Apparently, someone in the "adult entertainmnet" business has given in to pressure from family and is selling his porn production company on eBay. (Boing Boing: Porn company for sale on eBay) It is being sold lock, stock and barrel. And, as is required in this industry, the business is also the custodian of information about the performers in the business:
eBay: ENTIRE PORN COMPANY FOR SALE !!! (item 7567775239 end time Dec-08-05 21:30:00 PST):... An established relationship with all your favorite and current Adult Stars. Company records include there [sic] real names, addresses, phone numbers and other personal information. These records are kept because of Federal laws....
The opening bid is $100,000 and I can just imagine some drooling weirdo buying the company just for the information it holds. I can also just imagine more than a few starlets concerned about who the purchaser will be.
Update (20051208): Apparently eBay has yanked the listing.
Hahaha, that is brilliant!!
ReplyDeleteI think though it might be possible to firstly use a NDA and second of all include certain terms in an agreement with the new buyer.
By this I mean the seller and buyer can agree on a period of say 3 weeks for due diligence. The seller can stipulate that a background check be done and any other search that could help prevent the businesses being purchased by a weirdo.