As Tracy Coenen recently reported on WalletPOP, the California Attorney General has sued YTB International (OTC BB: YTBLA), alleging that the company is a "gigantic pyramid scheme."Now color me naive but it would seem to me that the legality of a company's business would be something of material interest to shareholders and maybe, just maybe, something that should be announced through a press release. But YTB International decided that if its shareholders wanted to find out that California AG was trying to shut it down, they could jolly well dig through the SEC's EDGAR database and find out for themselves in this 8-K.
What makes especially lame is that YTB is normally somewhat of a PR mill, using PR Newswire to announce all kinds of things a lot less interesting than a lawsuit from a state attorney general:
YTB International Contemplates Implementation of Franchises
YTB International Continues to Climb Travel Weekly's Power List
YTB International (YTBLA) Approved for Trading on OTCBB
The first one is especially ambitious because it announces that the company is "contemplating" doing something.
Of course YTB International is innocent until proven guilty, but the company's effort to slip the lawsuit through unnoticed sure does make them look slimy.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
8-07-2008 @ 2:45PM
John Frenaye said...
The response was timely after being served. Unfortunately for YTB the story broke on http://notravelmlms.blogspot.com at 1am and the rest of the media jumped on it.
What is snakey is that they had been working with the AG for 18 months (according to their 8K) yet it was never disclosed in ANY filings. Many of their insiders had sold large amounts of stock during that time as well and I suspect an SEC investigation is not far behind.