eBay<\/a> employees were prosecuted for targeting them in a cyberstalking campaign that involved sending the couple cockroaches, fly larvae and a bloody Halloween pig mask.<\/p>\nAs part of \u2060the settlement, eBay agreed to pay $46.15m to the couple; fund $6m in charitable contributions to non-profit organizations; and issue a \u201cstrongly-worded\u201d statement about the conduct \u200bof three of its top former executives.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe believe this resolution \u200csends a clear message that corporations and \u200ctheir executives cannot engage in this type of misconduct without facing significant consequences,\u201d Christopher Murphy, the Steiners\u2019 attorney, said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Ebay said \u200cin a statement that what happened to the Steiners was \u201cwrong, reprehensible and should never have happened\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe continue to extend our deepest apologies to the Steiners,\u201d the company said. \u201cThis agreement is consistent with our commitment to fairly compensate the Steiners and fulfills our efforts to make things right.\u201d<\/p>\n
Seven former eBay workers pleaded guilty and received sentences of as high as 57 months in prison for participating in the scheme, which also involved several of them traveling from California to Natick, Massachusetts, to surveil the Steiners and try to install a GPS tracking \u200cdevice on their car.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors have said that the aim was to silence them after senior executives deemed their newsletter, EcommerceBytes, critical of the company. The campaign began after the then CEO, Devin Wenig, in August 2019 texted Steve Wymer, then \u200bits chief communications officer, that it was time to \u201ctake her down\u201d, referring to Ina Steiner, according to prosecutors and the Steiners. Ebay itself was criminally charged and agreed in 2024 to pay a $3m fine.<\/p>\n
Wenig, a former Thomson Reuters executive who stepped down as eBay\u2019s CEO in September 2019, was never charged. His lawyers have argued he had no knowledge or involvement in the harassment campaign and that his messages had been advocating for a \u2060public relations strategy to address Ina Steiner\u2019s reporting.<\/p>\n
As part of the settlement, the Steiners\u2019 attorneys said Wenig will \u200bpay them $2m and make a $1m \u200bdonation to a charity focused on protecting first amendment \u200brights in the name of Ina Steiner.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one should ever have been subjected to what the Steiners endured in \u200b2019, and I\u2019m saddened by \u200cit, especially because it occurred \u200bduring my time as CEO \u200bof eBay,\u201d Wenig said in a statement on Tuesday. \u201cThis behavior is antithetical to everything I stand for and believe in.\u201c<\/p>\n
Wendy Jones, who previously served as senior vice-president of global operations, and Wymer will pay the couple $500,000 and $50,000, respectively, the plaintiffs say. Their lawyers did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n
The Steiners\u2019 lawyers said additional settlements were reached with all other eBay employees named in their lawsuit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ebay and three former top executives have agreed to pay $55.7m to resolve a lawsuit by a Massachusetts…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":832246,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[45,49,48],"class_list":["post-832245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=832245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/832246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=832245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=832245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=832245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}