Moniker founder files suit against acquirer.
[Story updated with Moniker statement at end.] Moniker founder Monte Cahn has sued Oversee.net along with its current CEO Jeff Kupietzky and founder Lawrence Ng over a $13 million inventive plan.
Cahn sold his Moniker domain name registrar and related businesses to Seevast in 2005. In 2007 Oversee.net approached Seevast and Moniker about buying the business, according to the complaint. It agreed to a purchase price of $35 million, but allegedly said it would not purchase the business without Cahn committing to join Oversee.net for at least three years.
The suit says that Oversee.net offered a Management Incentive Plan (MIP) for up to $13 million for Cahn to join the company. Cahn would also receive 300k shares in Oversee.net, $250k base salary, a signing bonus of $75k, yearly retention bonus of $75k, and other incentives including participation in an equity incentive plan.
Cahn was originally to serve as president of Moniker, according to the suit. The role changed over time to include running SnapNames and DomainSponsor, yet Cahn says the incentive plan wasn’t adjusted even though he was no longer working exclusively on Moniker.
After leaving the company in December, Cahn says he wasn’t paid any of the $13 million in the incentive plan. The suit says:
Cahn is informed and believes, and on the basis of such information and belief alleges that Oversee improperly interfered with his ability to attain his goals pursuant to the MIP, and thereby interfered with his ability to receive his bonuses under the MIP by, amongst other things, improperly diverting substantial revenues and profits from Moniker to other subsidiaries of Oversee; reducing his staff by more than 33%; and improperly and incorrectly reporting Moniker’s Selling, General, & Administrative Expenses.
The suite also alleges that Oversee.net agreed to pay Cahn 50% of its commission for the sale of Restaurants.com, which closed in February 2011, but has failed to do so.
Cahn is suing the defendants for breach of contract, intentional misrepresentation, negligent misrepresentation, unfair competition, among others.
You can read the entire complaint here.
Oversee has issued the following statement regarding the lawsuit:
Predictably, the path Monte Cahn has chosen is needlessly confrontational and provocative. Regrettably, his perceived dispute with Oversee is a result of his own falling short of expectations. This action will do nothing to further his cause and will only result in the needless expense of time and attorneys fees. It is unfortunate that Monte’s actions will impact employees and clients of Moniker, the company he helped found.
Monte’s unfounded claims are well overstated and singularly without merit. We will vigorously defend this action and we look forward to resolving this in court at the earliest possible opportunity.
Josh says
More money…more problems.
domainqueen says
i can hear Rick Schwartz masturbating
Elephants are People Too says
Sounds like parking went south and Oversee did not want to pay up.
S.W. says
Moniker hasn’t been the same since it was sold, I sure miss the days when Monte addressed our concerns and there was a personal touch about dealing with the company.
Since the Oversee acquisition, it went from having the best customer service to one of the worst. Trying to reach customer service there nowadays is like pulling teeth.
Best of luck Monte, I hope you will prevail and may justice be served.
Gnanes says
Moniker’s reputation has been going down the drain.
Dean says
This new management team is running the company into the ground, It has been one bad thing after another since they took over.
Nic says
“Sounds like parking went south and Oversee did not want to pay up.”
Yep, it does.
Standard tactic, dont pay and Monte will “settle” for less than he was due before it gets to court.
Mark says
Or of course, he could have simply missed his targets and not deserved the money he is suing for – two sides to every story.
adam says
OUCH . That’s a harsh rebuttal . Pop up the corn.
personal experience says
Let’s face it and smell the roses, the whole domain industry went south. Yes Oversee has made a mess of Moniker. Including inheriting “Alvarez” mess. But, Monte was smart! He sold the business right before the domain real estate market went south. Oversee doesn’t want to pay up because they probably realized they “f’d” UP BY buying the business and know doesn’t want to pay up.
Andrew Allemann says
It’s no secret that Moniker has underperformed expectations since the acquisition, primarily in the live auction game. Live auctions peaked right at the time of the acquisition. But beyond that few apart from Monte and those inside Oversee.net know the details of the incentive plan and what transpired after he joined, so I’m not going to speculate.
But I’m sure the details will come out eventually. Don’t be surprised if Oversee.net’s response to the suit just denies everything rather than going into details…unless they counter-sue.
eric rice says
Alway, always, always get everything you want upfront in CASH, 9 times out of 10 companies will fight you over anything left in escrow on a business sale or on something like this incentive plan.
Rob Sequin says
Oversee.net, what a fine company.
Their response to Monte’s claim is supposed to be positive for them?
They start out with “Predictably”? Really? As though Monte is knows to be a jerk? I don’t think so.
What a condescending statement from Oversee.
Let’s see… who’s at fault for wrecking Moniker? The founder who made it a huge success or the company that has a shitty reputation in the domain industry?
Let the transfers out of Moniker begin… I mean continue
http://www.ricksblog.com/my_weblog/2011/04/bye-bye-birdie-i-mean-bye-bye-moniker.html
Steve M says
Andrew, I hope you’ll consider removing “domainqueen’s” profane comment. It doesn’t belong on a high-standards blog such as yours. Please feel free to thereafter remove this one as well.
Hatrick says
Rob. I would say that Monte is well known to be aggressive which can easily be worded and turned around to being called provocative and confrontational. He wouldn’t be where he is if he didn’t have a bit of that. In fact I’d say his aggressive behavior is why Oversee brought him on board and why others are happy to work with him. Sometimes the tiger bites his handler though. Oversee’s statement was surprisingly adversarial but they knew who they were dealing with. So, yea “predictably” is perfect wording.
Moniker is likely a wreck for multiple reasons, because the registrar space is in a race to the bottom very similar to what’s taken place in the hosting space, because Oversee hasn’t focused on shoring it up, because of management mistakes, because Monte seemed to be less hands-on before his departure, because Chef Patrick? (doubtful), because moniker is more of a wholesale-facing registrar and less retail-facing . There’s lots of reasons I’m sure. The wholesale registrar business, auctions, parking and all the domain business has been on a decline since the Moniker purchase. The only increases have been in low-margin retail volume and maybe the new .co stuff, which Moniker doesn’t really aggressively compete in.
Chris L says
this is a shameful action on the part of Oversee.net. I agree with S.W that “Moniker hasn’t been the same since it was sold, I sure miss the days when Monte addressed our concerns and there was a personal touch about dealing with the company”. From personal experience I can attest that Monte put something into Moniker that made it the best – Heart & Soul. I know from experience that Monte has taken customer concerns and pursued them as though they were his own. Oversee has plundered Moniker’s good name for investors and credibility, while simultaneously gutting the company’s staff and strength, thereby curtailing service to the lifeblood of ANY company – it’s clients.
Monte made Moniker the “little registrar that could” – Oversee blew up the bridge. Monte worked harder than anyone I’ve ever seen, and I know that commitment and dedication cost him dearly – it is a work ethic and an integrity that the “rein-holders” at Oversee will never understand.
I hope and pray that Monte wins, because he’s earned it, and because a win for him is a win for all that can be best in business.
I GOLD says
I have known Monte for some 11-12 years now and is simply one of the “GOOD GUYS” which is really hard to find these days.
I suggest Oversee.net be worried as he is no shmuck and if he says they owe him 13 million then they probably do!
Louise says
Moniker, along with Dotster and DomainIt, to me is like an Oasis in a fiercely cuthroat, greedy syndicate of an organized criminal industry: major Registrars, Verisign and ICANN. All that little stuff that got blogged about in the last year, including this little kerfuffle, is insignificant and blown way out of proportion. Keep harping on it and tranfer to the other Registrars – you’re in for a shock!
Domainer Extroidinaire says
Isn’t being way over paid for Moniker enough for Monte? Moniker was already going downhill before Monte sold out. Who gets incentives for running a company that makes less and less money during your employment? Greed is profitable.
>i can hear Rick Schwartz masturbating
Good one. 🙂
DomainAnimal.com says
sounds like a typical employer. “predictably”, why have a good employee do one job really well when you can task him with doing the job of three for the same price, and suck the lifeblood out of him too
and WOW, on their statement, “Monte’s actions will impact employees and clients of Moniker, the company he helped found.” That sounds like a low blow to me. I’m sure if anyone cares about the employees and long-time clients its the guy who founded the company and has been with them the longest, probably considers many of them like family. my 2 cents
Hatrick says
DomainAnimal The person you refer to as the founder of the company sold his controlling shares of the company a long time ago to Oak Hill. What do you think employees who had stock options think of that ?
Patricia Kaehler says
Where are things standing currently…
As we are heading into June 2011… ??
~Patricia – DomainBELL
Andrew Allemann says
@ Patricia – a response has not been filed yet.
Mansour says
Oversee.net!! what a lousy name for a major domain name player. First thing they should do is change their name.
Bobby Cakes says
Any updates on M Cahn lawsuit?
Andrew Allemann says
@ Bobby – lots
https://domainnamewire.com/2011/10/04/monte-cahn-calls-oversees-motion-to-dismiss-boilerplate/
Bobby Cakes says
thanks.