a serious ethical dilemma

[mountain_laurel]

i heard back from Time Warner investor relations. they say that only the brokerage can say whether the shares are really mine or not. i went back to etrade (which used to handle options for netscape/aol) and checked my previous transactions, and it doesn't say whether there were more shares i didn't sell, it just tells me how many i sold. it's possible, i suppose, that i made some sort of mistake at the time, or for that matter that etrade made some sort of mistake. another call to EquiServe says that yes, they really are mine, that i received them as part of the AOL/Time Warner merger.

here's the thing: i left Netscape in November of 1999, and sold all my shares at that time. the merger took place in January of 2000. why would i have received shares (and not options -- shares!) after i left the company? the only explanation i can think of at this point is that the shares were issued in error at that time, and have been sitting in a brokerage firm under my name ever since. i was notified this past week because the shares were converted from AOL to Time Warner under the terms of their new agreement, whatever the hell that is.

does that make them legally mine? i don't know. but everybody seems to believe they're mine, except for me. since the company has gone through so many changes and the brokerage has also changed since the time the shares were issued, no one seems to have any records that say they're not mine.

i don't know what to do.

Comments

[morrisa.livejournal.com]

Go on, take the money and run, doo doo doo! Go on, take the money and run, doo doo doo! Now it's one thing to run around trying to return a wallet full of cash with no address in it, one you're sure some nice person will miss, but quite another thing to worry about ethics where Time Warner is concerned. I don't think they need your little lump of the stock, (well, maybe it could pay for 4 billable hours to a good lawyer in their internet copyright infringement office, but I'd guess they can scrape that up somewhere else) and you've already been told by an authoritative company that it's for you, that it's been in your name all this time. Pay some bills, or put away a month's rent for lean times, or take a trip! Hmm. I can just see you on a beach in Jamaica with your guitar... Or at least shaving flakes of real truffle over your pasta tonight.

[merde.livejournal.com]

actually, if i do sell it, i will put it in the bank to help cover my living expenses while i job-hunt, except for $200 or so, which i will budget for redecorating my bedroom. i think it would be good for me to have a project this holiday season. not only as a gift to myself, but as something to keep me distracted from how much everything sucks.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Don't forget putting aside money for taxes.

[peglegpete.livejournal.com]

You misspelled 'texas'.

[swisscheesed.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a good idea...TAKE IT TAKE IT TAKE IT...

[lapsedagnostic.livejournal.com]

In the black and white, if it's easy, it's not yours, don't take it. In the real world, though, the truth is that "they" think it's yours, and, as an entity, would be much happier if you simply took that damn stock, went away, and let them keep the books nice and neat.

btw, did you have stock option you didn't convert when you went away? Sometimes there are corporate rules that if the management of a company changes hands (like Netscape's did), all outstanding options getting converted to stock. Again, in most companies, even though you left, your stock options are usually still valid for 90 days, waiting for you to buy them or surrender them. This would have covered the December purchase. Maybe they _are_ yours.

Better than a rock.

[merde.livejournal.com]

In the black and white, if it's easy, it's not yours, don't take it. In the real world, though, the truth is that "they" think it's yours, and, as an entity, would be much happier if you simply took that damn stock, went away, and let them keep the books nice and neat.

this is where i'm getting hung up. i have a pretty strong sense of ethics, and it's incredibly difficult for me to consider taking something i don't believe is mine. but as you say, the company thinks they are mine -- and the value of the shares (currently around $3700) is meaningless to a company as big as time warner, but absolutely huge to me, especially at this particular time. so i'm wrestling with my sense that it would be wrong to sell them.

i am as certain as i can be that i did exercise and sell all my shares before i left -- but it's been 4 years. i've looked through all my paperwork, and looked at etrade, and as far as i can tell, i did sell everything i had.

anyway, either i made a mistake or they did.

[khaosworks.livejournal.com]

Issued in error or not, legally, they're yours. Equitably, there may be some doubt, but there's very little chance that anyone will go after you for that. The question is, really, is the mistake yours or theirs? I would say that if there is no record either way, I'd take them at their word and cash it in. If you are absolutely certain that you can't have made a mistake, offer it back to Time Warner. I doubt they'd take it, though.

A possible reason?

[eejitalmuppet.livejournal.com]

When the merger took place, share allocations may have been decided on the basis of holdings at some earlier date. This kind of arrangement is sometimes set up to prevent people suddenly grabbing a few shares in the hope of receiving another lump of them "free". It also reduces opportunities for (and suspicion of) insider trading.

If the AOL-TW merger had such an arrangement, and the critical date for calculating entitlements was before you sold those shares, it wouldn't matter that you sold the original shares before the date of the merger. If something like this happened, those shares are yours by right.

Good luck.

[2wanda.livejournal.com]

If there are shares that are in your name, then that's money in your pocket, Baybee. Enjoy!

[kratkrat.livejournal.com]

Well, since I used to work for a brokerage, I know lots of guys who are very up on this stuff. I can write to the guy who was our compliance officer and chief counsel, and the guy who was our trade desk manager, if you like. I could get their take on things. I'm having dinner with the trade desk manager next week, anyway. I'm sure I will bring your tale up at dinner either way, to get his take on it just to satisfy my own curiosity.

If you want me to ask those guys, just send me an email with the timeline of when you sold out and how much, as best you recall, as well as what they are telling you now.

[aliza250.livejournal.com]

Maybe they were shares that had some odd vesting percentage only calculated after you left?

But yes, I would take them.