By Tom Winnifrith | Tuesday 8 May 2018
I was reminded today about numerous ways Julie Meyer has bullied her critics to silence them - defamatory internet posts, lawyers letters, the works. Thanks to the Winnileaks service we can now see confidential emails which show how she managed to silence ex employees posting on the workjplace review site Glassdoor.co.uk. First up is an email from Julie to key lieutenants within Ariadne including lawyer Peter Bradley. It is dated 26 November 2017.
Peter,
There is a site which publishes anonymous information about companies which is often defamatory. We have had lawyers write to the UK site – www.glassdoor.co.uk –and on several occasions, they have taken 80% of the posts down.
Then, the posts reappear. The post from 23 April 2017 is dematory, and I have drafted a letter for you to send once Julie B gets their CEO’s name and address in the UK. I would like to get this out tonight or tomorrow by email.
It is being picked up by the int’l press, and I can’t allow for it to hurt our fundraising.
Can you please deal with this today.
Julie
It seems that at last Julie and I have something in common - we both generate a stack of typos!
Hmmm. 26th November 2017 . As a reminder. The first winding up petition from a pissed off creditor ( GQ Employment Law) was filed on 3rd November. Julie herself approached Leonard Curtis to act as administrator on 14 November! So while talking to the administrator about winding Ariadne up she was still - by her own words - doing a fund raising. Did she tell potential investors about this fundraise?
Natch Ariadne lawyer Peter Bradley, being what we might term a Good German, immediately fired off a letter by email to Robert Hohman the CEO of Glassdoor insisting that a posting be removed as it was defamatory. It ended with the sort of chilling threat that many of us have become accustomed to:
Glassdoor’s publications of information that is known to be false if defaming and damaging Ariadne Capital, and Ariadne Capital will hold you responsible for any damage that it undergoes as a result of the on-going publication of this information. Take this information down at once.
Hmmm - so what were the defamatory remarks? Well here is one:
The business is not insolvent; it has Net Assets of €6.8 m. It has employees who have worked happily for 4, 5, 7 years who are being paid on time and have no problems with the firm. It is defamatory to say that the firm is insolvent, doesn’t pay people and is a con.
Right. So when Mr Bradley wrote this the company was already facing a winding up petition from one creditor and Julie herself had approached the administrator about a winding up process. The administrator has stated that as at 31 October the company had cash of NIL and he has subsequently failed to realise anything from its supposed net assets of 6.8 million Euro at all. So would Mr Bradley still stand by his words?
Whatever the veracity of Ariadne's claims Glassdoor caved at once and removed the hostile post but not a stream of patently bogus positive ones supposedly from Ariadne's staffers as you can see HERE.
I have today received more internal documents via the Winnileaks service and there will thus be further coverage of this matter this week.
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