Pirate Bay suitor shoved off Swedish stock exchange

The Swedish stock exchange has kicked the proposed buyer of The Pirate Bay off its trading floor.

AktieTorget confirmed (in Swedish) late yesterday that Global Gaming Factory X AB (GGF) had been excluded from the exchange with immediate effect.

It said GGF had “seriously violated AktieTorget’s requirement that listed companies should ensure that the information is accurate, relevant and reliable” under the stock market’s so-called “transparency principle”.

A disciplinary committee reached the decision after suspending trading in the company following GGF’s announcement in June that it planned to buy the notorious BitTorrent tracker site for 60m kronor (£4.7m).

That surprise move came just two months after four men were sentenced to prison and fined £2.4m for their involvement in the operations of The Pirate Bay.

Officials at Sweden’s exchange alleged that GGF was guilty of “serious infringements”.

“They give a systematic impression of a lack of accountability and of an almost casual and unsuspecting approach to including the disclosure requirements,” said the committee.

AktieTorget’s board said it was disappointed that GGF had “misled the market” by failing to adequately disclose details of its business arrangements with traders.

Late last month GGF’s boss Hans Pandeya insisted that the acquisition would go ahead after he won the backing of company shareholders, even though the outfit’s trading had been halted by AktieTorget officials since 21 August.

Over the months since GGF first put forward its ambitious bid to buy The Pirate Bay, some of its investors have walked, after the company failed to explain how it planned to fund the acquisition.

Despite the latest action by Sweden’s stock exchange, Pandeya remains defiant that his firm will indeed buy TPB.

He has already declared that, if necessary, the acquisition will be paid for out of his own pocket if faceless investors, that Pandeya claims have backed the deal, suddenly vanish.

Yesterday he repeated that declaration to the Associated Press. He also branded AktieTorget officials “incredibly scared” and “very weak people.”

Meanwhile, GGF is no longer displaying press releases on its website. ®