http://mobile.theverge.com/2014/1/13/5303932/the-fabulous-lives-of-venture-capital-kingmakers-ken-ben-lerer-profile

#SuryaRay #Surya In a major development in the bitter court fight over the founding of the Huffington Post, a New York judge has for the second time refused the request of media moguls Arianna Huffington and Ken Lerer to dismiss the case. The new ruling also expands the scope of the case to include claims of fraud and unjust enrichment. Thursday’s ruling comes as part of a case that begin in early 2011 when two Democratic political operatives, Peter Daou and James Boyce, filed a lawsuit stating that they had presented the idea for HuffPo in 2004. The pair claim that Huffington and Lerer then cut them out of the process, launching the site in 2005 and claiming the idea as their own. In October 2011, New York Supreme Court Judge Charles Ramos threw out seven of eight claims in the case but allowed one claim — based on the state claim of idea misappropriation — to go forward. Since then, the parties have been wrangling over procedural issues and Daou and Boyce filed an amended complaint. In addressing the amended complaint, Ramos allowed the idea theft claim to go forward as well as those for fraud and unjust enrichment; he tossed a fourth claim for breach of implied contract. “Plaintiffs have adequately alleged that defendants took the information that plaintiffs provided, secretly shared it with another person, camouflaged the origin to make it appear as it came from that other person and, in effect, stole the idea and developed it with that other person,” Ramos wrote in letting Daou and Boyce go forward with the fraud claim. In the same ruling, Ramos rejected Daou and Boyce’s request to subpoena the CEO of AOL, Tim Armstrong, rejecting arguments that Armstrong had essential knowledge about the founding of the Huffington Post. AOL bought the Huffington Post for $315 million in the spring of 2011. Today’s ruling does not mean that Daou and Boyce have won the case. Instead, it means they have cleared a crucial procedural hearing and, thanks to the added claims, can proceed to a trial with a stronger hand. “The court has made a preliminary decision based solely on the un-contradicted allegations of the complaint and without any consideration of the facts,” a Huffington Post spokeswoman said. “As we have said from day 1, there is no merit to these allegations. They are make believe. Finally we will now be able to move for summary judgment and lay out what the real facts are. We look forward to the opportunity to present the full record to the court.” Here’s the ruling: Order upholding HuffPo complaint.pdf by Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro: Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial. * NewNet Q1: Content Farms and Niche Networks on the Rise * Content Farms: The Players, The Benefits, The Risks * Forecast: the converged mobile messaging market http://dlvr.it/2xyfbp @suryaray

"But he may not be able to stay out of the spotlight for long. Even as he offloaded the Huffington Post to AOL, Mr. Lerer also made an acquisition—Huffington Post's CEO, Eric Hippeau, a former partner at Softbank and an effective rainmaker who could turn Mr. Lerer's fledgling seed-stage fund into a powerhouse venture capital player. Mr. Hippeau knows the business and has deftly made the transition from operator to financier before (he was the CEO and chairman of Ziff-Davis from 1993 to 2000 before joining the large venture fund), so it's not a new path for him. But it's relatively new for Mr. Lerer, who, prior to the Huffington Post, was a high-powered PR executive accustomed to navigating the political structures of large, established companies. He has no formal finance experience, and the Huffington Post was his first real entrepreneurial venture. His fund is tiny, consisting of three partners: Mr. Lerer; his 28-year-old son, Ben (the CEO of Thrillist.com and the manager of Lerer Ventures); and Ben's pal Jordan Cooper (a venture partner who's also the CEO of Hyperpublic). How can he be a serious contender in the venture space? Should we just trust him?

[The Washington Post.]