San Jose Merc Columnist Suspended for Investment

from the conflicts-of-interest dept

Chris Nolan of the San Jose Mercury News was apparently suspended for taking part in the friends and family shares made available for Autoweb's IPO a few months ago, leading to a conflict of interest. This brings up an interesting issue, that I've always wondered about. It seems, though, that there really wasn't a very big conflict of interest, but I guess any conflict is worth looking at. If there had been any obvious hype related to Autoweb, or negative press on its competitors that might be a different story.