Greenlight Capital, the hedge fund run by David Einhorn, has discovered the identity of the anonymous Seeking Alpha blogger that revealed one of the fund's stock positions.
"Greenlight has identified the anonymous blogger and has resolved the matter privately to our satisfaction," the fund said in an emailed statement to Business Insider.
Greenlight Capital has also dropped its court proceeding against Seeking Alpha, ValueWalk's Jacob Wolinsky points out.
"Greenlight dropped the suit of its own accord. We did not at any time disclose the author's identity formally or informally, and at no time were our actions dictated by reaching a deal with Greenlight," a spokesperson for Seeking Alpha said in a statment. "We're happy Greenlight is no longer pursuing the case, and has resolved the issue to its satisfaction."
Last month, the hedge fund had filed a court petition requesting that popular stock blogging website Seeking Alpha reveal the identity of an anonymous blogger called "Valuable Insights."
Greenlight alleged that Valuable Insights disclosed the hedge fund's trade secrets and breached confidentiality by revealing his fund's stake in Micron Technology before it was made public. Einhorn publicly revealed the position at a charity hedge fund conference in late November.
What's more is Greenlight said in the court petition the only folks aware of the Micron stake were Greenlight employees, counsel and prime brokers. Those people have a contractual or fiduciary responsibility to keep these investments confidential.
Here's Seeking Alpha's full statement:
Greenlight dropped the suit of its own accord. We did not at any time disclose the author's identity formally or informally, and at no time were our actions dictated by reaching a deal with Greenlight.
We're happy Greenlight is no longer pursuing the case, and has resolved the issue to its satisfaction.
This is not the first demand we have had to disclose pseudonymous authors' identities; we have yet to disclose author identity in any claim submitted to court.
Platforms such as Seeking Alpha are protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which provides immunity from liability for providers and users of an "interactive computer service" who publish information provided by others. This doesn't stop attempts to file pre-action motions to try and get to specific posters, but so far our experience has been that the claims get shut down or withdrawn.
We continue to support third-party posters, and their decision as to whether to publish under real or assumed names. We will continue to step in to the extent we deem reasonable against claims submitted, as we believe in the value that psuedonymity builds for the community.
Also, here's Valuable Insight's Seeking Alpha profile:
