Gawker May File Its Own Suit Against Peter Thiel

He spent $10M funding lawsuits against them
By Michael Harthorne,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 11, 2016 2:27 PM CDT
Gawker May File Its Own Suit Against Peter Thiel
Gawker is looking into suing billionaire Peter Thiel.   (AP Photo/Ben Margot, File)

Well, it looks like Gawker won't be going down without a fight. Forbes reports Gawker Media is looking into suing billionaire archenemy Peter Thiel. Thiel claims he spent about $10 million funding multiple lawsuits against Gawker—including Hulk Hogan's incredibly successful one—in an effort to punish the media company. Gawker has been critical of Thiel for years, even outing him as gay in a 2007 blog post, according to CBS News. Now, Gawker wants to know if Thiel broke any laws when he funded those lawsuits. Its lawyers are specifically looking at possible racketeering or tortious interference, which Forbes defines as “the intentional interference of an outside party to damage a plaintiff’s contractual or business relationships.”

While neither Gawker nor Peter Thiel are commenting on a potential lawsuit, an anonymous source inside Gawker confirmed to Business Insider the company is looking into one. After being ordered to pay Hulk Hogan $140 million for posting part of his sex tape, Gawker filed for bankruptcy on Friday. Gawker founder Nick Denton tweeted a thank you to Thiel for the traffic boost the news brought. The company will continue to operate as normal while it looks for a buyer, but experts worry about the precedent being set by Thiel's actions. "You don't want billionaires to be any final arbiter of press fairness—that's just not democracy," a media analyst tells CBS. (More Gawker stories.)

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