Launched to Replace Live Current Media Board — Proxy Battle

Battle begins to replace board at Live Current Media.

The former CEO of what is now Live Current Media has launched a proxy battle to regain control of the firm’s Board of Directors.

David Jeffs was CEO of the firm from 2002 to 2007 when he hired Geoffrey Hampson to replace him. As stated by the proxy solicitation:

In March 2010, Mr. Jeffs received from a shareholder of the Firm a news release issued by Corelink Data Centers LLC, a Delaware firm that provides data technologies and web-hosting services on the Internet. The news release described Mr. Hampson as the CEO and Corelink’s success in establishing data centers in Las Vegas, Phoenix, Seattle and Chicago. The news release went on to say that, in conjunction with Corelink’s establishment of its fresh headquarters in Chicago, Mr. Hampson would move to Chicago at the end of March 2010. This news release suggested to Mr. Jeffs that Mr. Hampson was working for another firm. He reviewed Corelink’s website and talked to others familiar with the Firm to find out what he could regarding Mr. Hampson’s relationship to Corelink. He discovered that Mr. Hampson formed Corelink in August 2007, fewer than three months following becoming the Firm’s CEO, became Corelink’s CEO in November 2007, and had established Corelink’s four data centers in the two and a half years from Corelink’s formation in August 2007 to the date of its news release in February 2010.

The proxy solicitation mentions a number of other grievances:

– Committed to paying bonuses of $700,000 and an annual salary of $275,000 and other benefits to the president hired to replace Mr. Jeffs on October 1, 2007, who resigned from the Firm as of January 31, 2009 following serving only 16 months of his five-year contract

– Hired his common-law spouse—who appears to have a lot of fashion experience but no Internet retail experience—to run Perfume.com

-With the approval of the Current Board, lowered the exercise prices of the options granted to the members of the Current Board and other employees from between $2.00 and $2.50 to 65¢

– Filed unreliable financial statements for the periods ended September 30, 2008, December 31, 2008 and March 31, 2009 and had to file restated financial statements

– In March 2008, purchased an early-stage start-up business for $5 million that had no revenues and was written off the books by the end of 2009 following the Firm determined by the end of June 2009 that the auction software purchased through the buyout was impaired (Auctomatic)

Hampson and the board has by now been sued over similar issues.