Hans Pandeya Demands Apology From Us; Says He's Now Put Pirate Bay Acquisition On Hold

from the well,-look-at-that dept

After publishing our post on Hans Pandeya's bizarre and ridiculous attempt to buy The Pirate Bay again, after his failed bid last year (while still pretending that bid succeeded), Mr. Pandeya sent us an email demanding that we issue a correction and an apology for our story. Oddly, he failed to point out a single thing we got wrong in the story, so we're not really sure what to correct and don't see any reason to issue an apology. He did, however, send us a link to another press release that he, himself, sent out, claiming that his own company has "put the acquisition on hold." Uh, yeah. Perhaps that's because there's no acquisition to be had. It also claims that GGF is "commencing an arbitration proceeding" to gain control over The Pirate Bay's domain name. That ought to go over well, considering GGF never actually paid for The Pirate Bay and that deal collapsed. It's difficult to see what kind of claim he thinks he has on the domain now. We eagerly await future emails where he explains. Perhaps, next time, he can include more details to back up his claims.

Filed Under: hans pandeya
Companies: global gaming factory, the pirate bay

Guy Who Didn't Buy The Pirate Bay Last Year, Now Pretends He's Buying It Again... From Himself

from the delusional dept

Yikes. You may recall last year there was a lot of news around the announcement that a company called Global Gaming Factory (GGF) had bought The Pirate Bay and was going to turn it into an authorized service. However, a few days later, after seeing an interview with GGF's CEO, Hans Pandeya, we expressed skepticism that the deal would ever get done. Not only did Pandeya seem clueless about pretty much every detail (while contradicting himself multiple times), he mentioned that the deal hadn't actually been approved by his shareholders. And, as more and more details came out, it became clear that the deal was totally dead in the water. There were some insider trading charges. Shares of GGF were suspended from trading multiple times. Those brought on to do the deal were bailing out, claiming Pandeya had massive credibility problems and that the company didn't actually have the money to make the purchase. Indeed, the money never showed up, Pandeya had his assets frozen by the Swedish government for unpaid taxes, and everyone forgot about GGF.

Yesterday, however, Pandeya magically popped back up -- now living in Boston, and apparently running a new company, called Business Marketing Services Inc.. He claimed that he was, once again, buying The Pirate Bay for $10 million, and the story sounded nearly identical to the one last year. It still involved Pandeya, and still involved a totally unworkable plan to make the site an authorized distributor of music. The whole thing was surprising -- and even odder if you read that link above, is that the reporter never even mentions the failed sale from last year, or Pandeya's connection to it. Even Billboard, who you would think would know better, reported on the "announcement" from Pandeya as if it were legit.

If anything, it looks like Pandeya is simply playing the same game again, except at an even more bizarre level. He's now claiming that GGF actually did buy The Pirate Bay last year (it did not) and that he's now buying it from GGF. But, of course GGF doesn't own The Pirate Bay. The Pirate Bay folks are claiming that Pandeya's claims are a blatant "fraud." Greg Sandoval has all the details in the link above. Apparently "Business Marketing Services" was an OTC penny stock company that Pandeya somehow bought, which has basically no assets. It was previously owned by a pit boss at a casino and apparently was in the business of selling calendars of women in bikinis -- not that it made much money from it. It's an old trick for a company that wants to appear as a public company but can't go public. You find some defunct company that is trading as an OTC company and "merge" with it, and suddenly you're a "public company." The method is quite frequently used in questionable ways, and it seems like this time is no different.

So, no, The Pirate Bay has not been sold. Pandeya is still making claims he cannot live up to. He's trying to buy the site from his previous company -- whose own stock trading was suspended for questionable activities -- but that company never actually bought The Pirate Bay.

Filed Under: delusions, hans pandeya
Companies: global gaming factory, the pirate bay