NorthWest Biotherapeutics Inc (NWBO)

[biosectinvestor]

Yes, they did everything they could to isolate liability for publishing it:

1. It's a single purpose vehicle;
2. It's offshore; and
3. They hid the ownership of the domain and used it as a drop box only for communications.
4. It's in the UK, where financial regulation, despite protestations otherwise, is fairly lax.

The notion that any of you or I could put up a pretty wordpress blog, publish 3 or 4 stories that we might've copied from elsewhere, and then get a hit piece on a company covered by major papers, is pretty ludicrous. I presume there were big boys behind that effort, they used the echo chamber of other investor "blogs/news" sites, SA, etc., most likely (I wasn't here during that period, but I know how it goes). Nonetheless, the fact that they got major coverage and a focus on one of the investment managers to embarrass him, suggests some fairly high level efforts there. I can't imagine that was just some clown, or even two or three clowns.

Though it is definitely possible to get that kind of coverage from something so basic for one person, they'd have to really have the echo chamber down pat, and even then it would be unlikely they'd get major news coverage. It's either that, the small shorts working together (coordinating on twitter and elsewhere, very possibly not entirely knowingly in all cases) or something initiated by someone with more resources who could bring a reporter's attention to the article and the circumstances. Kind of how Jim Cramer described doing it in his famous video clip.

Anyway, it's pretty clear what their intention was... and that they succeeded. Next time, focus on the journalists and editors that give them coverage, in the nicest and most appropriate way possible, and get as much information from them as possible. There is no reason for them to hide it, and if there is a larger story, you want their involvement and focus - so stay friendly and don't sound crazy. They have the resources to get closer to the truth than most of us have at our finger tips.