The lawsuit alleges that defendants made materially false and misleading statements regarding the Company’s business prospects while failing to disclose the true motive behing Overstock’s relates to a series of On August 12, 2019, Overstock’s Chief Executive Officer (“CEO”) Patrick M. Byrne caused the Company to publish a press release entitled “Overstock.com CEO Comments on Deep State, Withholds Further Comment.” The press release contained, among other things, references to “political espionage conducted against Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump (and to a lesser degree, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz)” and references to “the Men in Black.” Following this unusual press release, Overstock’s stock price fell $9.00 per share, or roughly 36%, over the following two trading sessions, closing at $15.97 per share on August 14, 2019.
Then, on August 16 and August 17, 2019, news outlets reported that an unusual dividend linked to the Company’s tZERO crypto currency project, initiated by Byrne before his departure from Overstock, was specifically designed to “thwart short sellers” by impeding their ability to transfer the dividends. On this news, Overstock’s stock price fell $7.33 per share, or 29.4%, over the following two trading sessions, closing at $17.60 on September 17, 2019.
Finally, on September 22, 2019, MarketWatch published a report addressing Byrne’s recent sale of all of his Overstock securities, noting that Byrne appeared to be engaged in “shockingly brazen” market manipulation “while seemingly hiding out in an unidentified Asian country, with plans to invest the money in ways that it may not be recoverable by U.S. authorities.” On this news, Overstock’s stock price fell $3.78 per share, or 25.25%, to close at $11.19 per share on September 23, 2019.