Look, Megaupload wasn’t just a shady means for Kim Dotcom to acquire luxury cars, okay? Mr. Dotcom took a break from laying down tracks on his rap album to inform TorrentFreak that before the feds crashed the party, the company was planning a multi-billion-dollar IPO. Now, does that sound like a massive conspiracy to you?
TorrentFreak did a little digging and it seems there’s something to the claims. A corporate advisor named Richard Lim confirmed that he’d been tapped by Megaupload management to assist, and he says they were in talks with “a number” of potential Big Four auditors, as well as investment banks who might participate. He told them “most of the response was positive” and expressed skepticism that Megaupload could fairly be called a criminal enterprise:
They also knew full well that it would require a lot of scrutiny, due diligence and review of the operations, financials and overall business model of Megaupload not only by the auditors / accountants, lawyers for regulatory filings and IPO underwriters, but also the various regulatory agencies which govern the stock exchanges and public markets.
This does not fit with the ‘Mega-Conspiracy’ concept that Megaupload management is accused of, including that they knowingly and secretly conspired to do and hide criminal activities in Megaupload.”
It’s true that submitting to a top-down audit doesn’t square our expectations for a company engaged in systematic wrongdoing. That said, we’re not betting the Betabeat virtual farm that Megaupload thought that far ahead.