Wayne Nugent refusing to hand over WorldVentures passwords
As part of WorldVentures bankruptcy proceedings, Wayne Nugent is required to hand over ‘passwords to certain internet domains that belong to’ parent company Spherature Investments.
He hasn’t, prompting the Liquidating Trustee to file for contempt.
Nugent is required to hand over the passwords as per November 12th approval of Spherature Investments’ bankruptcy plan.
That plan saw WorldVentures acquired by Verona International Holdings.
As detailed in the Trustee’s December 16th motion;
On September 30, 2021, Spherature Investments filed the Notice of Plan Supplement.
The Plan Supplement included a list of domain names and intellectual property (the “Domains”) that belongs to Spherature Investments and is required to be transferred by Spherature Investments and acquired by Verona International Holdings pursuant to the terms of the Plan.
Certain of the Domains are controlled through a “GoDaddy” account controlled by Mr. Nugent.
Spherature Investments previously had access to the GoDaddy account.
Spherature Investments attempted to transfer the Domains to Verona Holdings.
However, on November 10, 2021, Spherature Investments were unable to access the GoDaddy account.
Upon information and belief, Mr. Nugent or someone under his direction changed his GoDaddy password, making it impossible for the Debtors to transfer the Domains.
Upon information and belief, Mr. Nugent changed the password to exert control over the Domains.
Spherature Investments have requested that Mr. Nugent provide access to the GoDaddy account or transfer the Domains to Verona Holdings.
Verona Holdings has also requested that Mr. Nugent transfer the Domains to Verona Holdings.
In response to such requests, and only after repeated requests and delay tactics by Mr. Nugent, Mr. Nugent finally transferred some of the Domains.
Mr. Nugent, however, has refused to transfer the most important Domains, transferring them only after repeated requests and counsel involvement, with the most important still having not been
transferred—Rovia.com.Mr. Nugent’s failure to transfer the Domains damages the Trust because
(i) the Debtors are unable to fulfill their obligations under the Plan by transferring their Domains to the Purchaser, and
(ii) the Trust is required to pay ongoing service fees to Microsoft to maintain information related to the Domains until they have been transferred.
The Trustee filed an expedited motion. As of yet no ruling has been made.
In related news, on December 17th Nugent was ordered to provide Spherature Investments with a copy of his tax returns.
The order is part of a broader beef between Spherature Investments and Nugent, pertaining to secret bankruptcy payments.
Stay tuned for an order on Nugent’s contempt.
Update 26th December 2021 – Wayne Nugent has filed a response to Spherature Investments’ motion.
In his response, Nugent claims he hasn’t been able to hand over the domains “due to technical issues with the GoDaddy website”.
Nevertheless, all of the requested domains including rovia.com, have now been transferred to the Purchaser.
Because Mr. Nugent has been attempting to transfer the requested domains in good faith to the Purchaser for weeks and does not oppose the transfer of the requested domains to the Purchaser – a fact that the Motion conveniently omits – there is no clear and convincing evidence to support granting the Motion and holding Mr. Nugent in contempt.
The court has scheduled a hearing on the matter for January 18th.
Article updated with Nugent’s response and scheduled hearing.
While I’m bummed that WV continues on in some form, it’s nice to see a bit of comeuppance for these sheisty goons.
I worked at the corporate office from 2016 – 2018 and it ALWAYS felt shady. The executives insisted on using personal machines not bound to the domain.
Insisted on using encrypted communications software like WhatsApp to hide what they were doing. Once we had an all hands meeting where they were explaining some points system for the selling. Even the presenters and their teams were confused.
It’s been very cathartic to read about the absolute dumpster fire this company continued to be after I left.
What’s surprising is how long it took people like Eddie to admit it. They like to blame Covid for what happened, but we had cyclical layoffs of entire teams and lost more than half our employees to that in 2018.
This company was circling the drain for a LONG time. We heard through the rumor mill even then that people in the field weren’t being paid.
Employees were being laid-off left and right. Then a whole meeting would be announced and we’d watch Josh Paine cry some crocodile tears about how hard this was for them and how we had corrected the course of the ship.
Ever watch those crazy old Enron meetings? It was like that.
We hadn’t been able to purchase computers for a long time. We were on our 3rd or 4th CFO.
These rich jackasses were still taking yearly bonus’s while putting people out in the street jobless.
Printer contracts and supplies gone while the executives printed out entire PowerPoint presentations to write on them, give back to their assistants and then have them make the edits.
It was insanity and that’s just the big stuff. Not to mention the ego trips that these executive putz’s went on daily. Good Riddance.
EDIT: This stuck in the craw of those executives and came up after a round of layoffs. It was both humorous and accurate. Made by a (at the time) recently laid off employee
mylittlemlm.tumblr.com/