Andreessen: Carl Icahn Made Up “Another Conspiracy Theory”

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In his latest blog post, Marc Andreessen accuses Carl Icahn of creating a conspiracy theory regarding eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY)’s sale of Skype. This post is an answer to Icahn’s last post, in which he said he discovered some kind of “workaround of the technology that was the subject of the licensing dispute between eBay and Skype’s founders.” Icahn claimed that the dispute was why Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) walked away from Skype the first time while eBay owned it.

Andreessen: “there was no workaround”

According to Andreessen, there was talk and speculation regarding some kind of workaround for the technology at the center of the dispute. However, he said he never thought it would work and that if there had been, “the Skype syndicate wouldn’t have had to settle the litigation with the founders and include them in the syndicate.” He said that would have made the Skype deal more profitable for the other members of the syndicate, which included eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY).

“Mr. Icahn’s latest conspiracy theory is not only imaginary and false—it also flunks basic logic,” according to Andreessen.

Carl Icahn, Andreessen continue to duke it out

I’m sure we’ll have a response from Icahn, if not tomorrow, then probably sometime in the not too distant future. In his post on Wednesday, he continued to push to see eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY)’s books regarding the Skype transaction. He believes Andreessen had a major conflict of interest which resulted in eBay shareholders being robbed of billions in profits.

He noted that the company has continued to refuse to show him all the books and that with what it did offer to show, it wanted to keep away from the eyes of other shareholders. He also suggested that he might resort to legal pressure in order to get those books opened up.

Meanwhile, Carl Icahn’s other push regarding eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY), which is the separation of PayPal, seems to be gaining some traction among shareholders. However, this could be based on anecdotal evidence from a survey conducted by Bernstein Research. That survey also suggested that shareholders may be becoming increasingly unhappy with eBay’s board, which again would be a point scored for Icahn, if the results of that survey are accurate.

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