Open Letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission (Part 8): Bring Enforcement Action Against Overstock.com for False and Misleading Disclosures

The SEC must get Patrick Byrne sober

Updated at 9:42 PM Eastern

To Mary Schapiro (Chairperson of the Securities and Exchange Commission):

I respectfully recommend that the Securities and Exchange Commission bring an enforcement action against Overstock.com (NASDAQ: OSTK) for violations of securities laws and retaliation against its critics. Otherwise, the SEC will send a clear message that violations of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), making false and misleading statements to investors, and retaliation against critics who uncover financial reporting irregularities will be tolerated and go unpunished.

On January 29, 2010, Overstock.com disclosed that the company was restating its financial reports for the third time in three years. In Overstock.com's recently filed 2009 10-K report, the company falsely tried to place the entire blame for its recent restatement of financial reports on the following:

We lacked a sufficient number of accounting professionals with the necessary knowledge, experience and training to adequately account for and perform adequate supervisory reviews of significant transactions that resulted in misapplications of GAAP.

Information technology program change and program development controls were inadequately designed to prevent changes in our accounting systems which led to the failure to appropriately capture and accurately process data.

I doubt that Overstock.com, led by CEO Patrick M. Byrne, will ever come clean with investors and admit that they deliberately violated GAAP and other SEC disclosure rules. As I will summarize below, the above disclosure omits material information in violation of Rule 10-5.

In addition, Overstock.com made false disclosures and certain corporate officers made false claims in violation of Rule 10b-5 to support the company's improper accounting for recoveries from underbilled and overpaid fulfillment partners. The company deliberately failed to correct those GAAP violations, after being notified by me.

Instead, CEO Patrick Byrne orchestrated a vicious retaliation campaign against me by smearing me, interfering in my divorce, and pretexting me, my family, and other critics. Overstock.com fired Grant Thornton as its auditors after they recommended that the company restate its financial reports to comply with GAAP, as I recommended.

If anyone at Overstock.com should be held fully responsible for the company's GAAP violations, it is the Audit Committee, CEO Patrick Byrne, and company President Jonathan E. Johnson. They all kept their positions at Overstock.com, while apparently scapegoating former CFO David Chidester and former Treasurer Rich Paongo, both who are no longer employed by the company.

From its inception in 1999 to date, each and every initial financial report for every reporting period has violated GAAP or some other SEC disclosure rule. Overstock.com even increased bonuses in 2009, while KPMG, its auditors, cited the company for material weaknesses in internal controls over financial reporting.

Brief Background

Starting on February 4, 2009, I correctly reported in my blog that Overstock.com violated Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) in its accounting for recoveries of amounts due from underbilled fulfillment partners. Overstock.com should have restated its financial reports to reflect income when it was actually earned from those fulfillment partners, less a reasonable estimate for uncollectable amounts (See SFAS No. 154 and SFAS No. 5).

Instead, Overstock.com improperly deferred income that it earned but underbilled its fulfillment partners during prior reporting periods (Q3 2008 and before) by moving such income to future reporting periods (Q4 2008, Q1 2009, Q2 2009, and Q3 2009). In other words, Overstock.com took income that should have been reported in prior reporting periods (Q3 2008 and before) and moved it to future reporting periods (Q4 2008 and later) to materially overstate its financial performance in those later reporting periods. In effect, Overstock.com created an illegal "cookie jar" reserve to inflate its future financial performance.

I correctly reported that Overstock.com ridiculously claimed that the collection of the entire amount of its underbillings (every single penny) “was not assured” and instead falsely claimed that a "gain contingency" existed, rather than make a reasonable estimate of uncollectable amounts as required under SFAS No. 5.

I correctly reported that Overstock.com's improper accounting for recoveries from underbilled fulfillment partners resulted in the company reporting Q4 2008 profit, rather than a properly reported Q4 2008 loss.

Starting in February 2009, I sent emails to Overstock.com that were cc'd to the Securities and Exchange Commission, expressing my concerns about the company's GAAP violations. Instead of listening to me in February 2009, Overstock.com continued to violate GAAP in its Q1, Q2, and Q3 2009 financial reports.

Note: More details in: 08/05/09: Open Letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission: Stop Overstock.com GAAP Violations Now!

In September 2009, the SEC Enforcement Division re-opened its investigation of Overstock.com followed by a parallel probe by the SEC Division of Corporation Finance.

In October 2009, the SEC Division of Corporation Finance discovered that Overstock.com overpaid a fulfillment partner $785,000 during 2008. The company recovered that overpayment in Q1 2009 and improperly reported the overpayment recovery as income in that same quarter, rather than properly restate its 2008 financial reports to correct that error. Overstock.com used the same false "gain contingency" excuse again to justify the company's improper accounting treatment for its recovery of the overpayment.

Overstock.com improperly concealed the recovery of the overpayment by including that amount in recoveries from underbilled fulfillment partners in Q1 2009 instead of separately disclosing the overpayment recovery in its financial reports.

In November 2009, Overstock.com even fired Grant Thornton as its auditors and both Patrick Byrne and Jonathan Johnson publicly vilified them when they recommended that the company restate its financial reports to comply with GAAP, as I recommended in my blog and emails to Overstock.com that were cc'd to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

On January 29, 2010, Overstock.com finally admitted that its accounting for recoveries from underbilled and overpaid fulfillment partners was "inappropriate" and that no gain contingency existed, as I previously reported in my blog.

On March 31, 2010, Overstock.com's 2009 10-K report restated the company's Q4 2008 financial report to show a properly reported net loss rather than an improper net profit, as I correctly said it should in my blog more than a year earlier.

In other words, this convicted felon, who Patrick Byrne has called on many occasions "Sam the crook", was right about Overstock.com's GAAP violations and the company's former auditors PricewaterhouseCoopers, its Audit Committee, and its management team were all wrong.

Overstock.com Corporate Sponsored Campaign to Intimidate Me and Family Members

Soon after I started exposing Overstock.com's recent GAAP violations in my blog, Patrick Byrne responded by escalating his vindictive corporate sponsored retaliation campaign against me, other critics who agreed with my correct analysis, and others he perceived as being part of his deluded conspiracy theory involving the "Sith Lord."

In April 2009, Patrick Byrne sent his paid cyberstalker Judd Bagley to interfere with my divorce proceeding and attempted to blackmail me into settling that case and even tried to contact my ex-spouse in an attempt to intimidate me.

Starting around May or June 2009 Judd Bagley "Facebook friended" me, journalists, bloggers, and other critics on Facebook to collect personal information on them and their family members and violated their terms of service by using a false identity. Bagley even attempted to "Facebook friend" my son and family members of other critics, too.

In December 2009, Judd Bagley posted the names of over 7,000 critics and their "Facebook friends" which included family members under age 18 (including my minor relatives) on Byrne's funded and controlled Deep Capture website as part of his pretexting scheme to harass and intimidate Overstock.com's critics.

Note: More details provided in: How Patrick Byrne Stalked Critics and the Media on Facebook by Gary Weiss

I tried to call into Overstock.com's quarterly conference calls to ask relevant questions about accounting issues, only to be refused access and ridiculed by Byrne on those same calls.

False Statements and Innuendo Made by Certain Corporate Officers to Justify Overstock.com's Improper Accounting

Soon after I correctly indentified certain GAAP violations by Overstock.com, Patrick Byrne and Jonathan Johnson made certain false statements to investors, as described below.

On February 6, 2009, Patrick Byrne responded to my original February 4 blog post identifying the GAAP violations described above on the InvestorVillage message board by claiming that:

Antar's ramblings are gibberish. Show them to any accountant and they will confirm. He has no clue what he is talking about.

A September 25, 2009, Salt Lake Tribune article quoted Patrick Byrne as saying:

"Gary Weiss and Sam Antar are goniffs," Byrne declared, using a yiddish term that he says means "a con man, a hustler and a scoundrel."

If the SEC is listening to them, their next step is to let Bernie Madoff write their indictment of me." Byrne was referring to the mastermind, now in prison, of a multibillion-dollar fraud whose case helped show how laissez faire Wall Street regulators had become.

On November 18, 2009, during a conference call with analysts and investors, Patrick Byrne falsely claimed:

In fact, we as I understand it, this doesn't change any positive quarter to a negative quarter or any negative quarter to a positive quarter.

In a November 25, 2009 Salt Lake Tribune article, company President Jonathan Johnson was quoted as saying:

None of these changes that they [Grant Thornton] are talking about, or that people at the SEC are now asking about, make any of our quarters go from negative to positive or from positive to negative.

As it turns out, all of the above explanations claimed by Patrick Byrne and Jonathan Johnson were false, misled investors into believing that Overstock.com properly complied with GAAP, and violated Rule 10b-5. The company actually lost money in Q4 2008 rather than make a profit as previously claimed. Overstock.com deliberately violated GAAP and as evidenced by its ridiculous "gain contingency" claim, its retaliation against me and other critics, and false statements made by Byrne and Johnson to support the company's improper accounting treatment for recoveries from underbilled and overpaid fulfillment partners.

Conclusion

As the criminal CFO of Crazy Eddie, I respected the SEC as an adversary, even as it brought me to my knees. Unfortunately, the public has lost confidence in the SEC because of its failure to listen to Harry Markopolos about Bernie Madoff and David Einhorn about Lehman Brothers and Allied Capital. The SEC has an excellent chance on its second investigation of Overstock.com to regain that lost public confidence by bringing a successful enforcement action against Overstock.com, its Audit Committee, and its management team for securities law violations, including Rule 10b-5.

In addition, you have an excellent opportunity to show that issuer retaliation by public companies against critics will not be tolerated. If you fail to address that issue, you are warned that America will be deprived of future independent whistleblowers like Ralph Nader and books like "Unsafe at Any Speed."

From a former adversary and respectfully,

Sam E. Antar

Update: Associated Press reporter Paul Foy permitted Patrick Byrne to continue lying to investors in an article published today about Overstock.com's GAAP violations, even though I documented Byrne's lies when interviewed by Foy and in our emails. The article states:

Byrne, who owns nearly 30 percent of the company's shares, says Overstock's accounting errors were generally conservative. The latest involved 0.1 percent of revenue and gave the company no advantage, he said.

"No advantage," he says? That is a flat out lie and Foy permitted Byrne to say it unchallenged in the article, even though he had information from Overstock.com's own SEC filings and from me showing that Byrne lied.

Nowhere does the article mention that Overstock.com's GAAP violations enabled the company to improperly report a Q4 2008 net profit, rather than a properly reported net loss. The article fails to mention that Overstock.com restated its Q4 2008 financial report to correct those GAAP violations and changed its previously reported net profit to a properly reported net loss.

Patrick Byrne went on to personally attack me. The AP article quotes Byrne as saying:

Byrne responds that "it's like hearing Bernie Madoff say I'm a bad guy."

No matter what Patrick Byrne calls me whether it is "Sam the crook" or "Bernie Madoff", this convicted felon was right about Overstock.com's GAAP violations and the company, its Audit Committee, its management including Byrne, and its auditors were all dead wrong.

At the very least, Overstock.com should immediately retract Byrne's false remarks so that investors reading the Associated Press article will not be misled about the real scope of the company's accounting errors.

Patrick Byrne will continue lying to investors unless the SEC puts a stop to his shenanigans and holds him accountable for his actions.

For additional information, please read Gary Weiss blog here and Going Concern blog here.

Note to Readers: Please order "Selling America Short: The SEC and Market Contrarians in the Age of Absurdity" by Richard Saurer and especially read Chapter Twelve: The Overstock Flame Wars.

My previous open letters to the SEC (please note that each letter is based on Overstock.com's deliberately vague, incoherent, and inconsistent, and often contradictory disclosures at the time each one was issued):

08/05/09: Open Letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission: Stop Overstock.com GAAP Violations Now!

11/22/09: Open Letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission Part 2: New Information on Overstock.com's GAAP and SEC Disclosure Violations

11/23/09: Open Letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission Part 3: Overstock.com Lied About Grant Thornton and Concealed Error

11/26/09: Open Letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission Part 4: Patrick Byrne Ignores Real Issues As He Vilifies Grant Thornton

12/14/09: Open Letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission Part 5: Issuer Retaliation Complaint Against Overstock.com

01/03/10: Open Letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission Part 6: Conflicting Disclosures by Overstock.com Reveal Improper Audit Opinion Shopping

02/02/10: Open Letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission Part 7: Why Overstock.com and David Chidester Parted Ways

Disclosure

I am a convicted felon and a former CPA. As the criminal CFO of Crazy Eddie, I helped Eddie Antar and other members of his family mastermind one of the largest securities frauds uncovered during the 1980's. I committed my crimes, simply because I could.

If it weren't for the efforts of the FBI, SEC, Postal Inspector's Office, US Attorney's Office, and class action plaintiff's lawyers who investigated, prosecuted, and sued me, I would still be the criminal CFO of Crazy Eddie today.

I do not own Overstock.com securities short or long. My research on Overstock.com and in particular its lying CEO Patrick Byrne is a freebie for securities regulators and the public in order to help me get into heaven, though I doubt that I will ever get there anyway. I will probably end up joining corporate miscreants such as fifth rate crooks like Patrick Byrne in hell.

In any case, exposing Overstock.com's financial reporting violations is a lot of fun and analyzing the company's financial reporting is a forensic accountant's wet dream.

Overstock.com: Rule 10b-5 Exposure from Disclosure Violations

In this blog post, I will detail how certain members of Overstock.com's (NASDAQ: OSTK) unprincipled management team conned investors into believing that the company's non-compliant EBITDA disclosures were in compliance with Securities and Exchange Commission Regulation G, governing non-GAAP disclosures. I believe that Overstock.com's non-compliant EBITDA disclosures that materially overstated the company's financial performance, together with other false and misleading representations by management, expose them to possible violations of anti-fraud Rule 10b-5.

In my last blog post, I detailed how Overstock.com finally amended its financial reports to comply with SEC Regulation G, almost a year after it was notified by me of its violations. This blog was first in exposing how Overstock.com used a non-compliant EBITDA measure to overstate its financial performance from Q2 2007 to Q2 2008.

Other bloggers, such as forensic accountant Tracy Coenen, NY Times columnist Floyd Norris, and investigative reporter Gary Weiss also reported about Overstock.com's non-compliant EBITDA measures, too. However, the company stubbornly refused to correct its non-compliant EBITDA measures and continued to materially overstate its financial performance. Instead, CEO Patrick Byrne retaliated with a malicious smear campaign directed at his critics in an effort to discredit them.

Even as Overstock.com finally attempted to correct its non-compliant EBITDA disclosures in its latest Q3 2008 10-Q report and other amended reports recently filed with the SEC, the company continued to violate certain other disclosure requirements under Regulation G by failing to fully disclose its change from using a non-compliant EBITDA measure to a compliant renamed "Adjusted EBITDA" measure.

It should come as no surprise that Overstock.com is unable or rather unwilling to provide accurate financial disclosures and comply with securities laws. Throughout Overstock.com's entire history, there has been a continuous pattern of untrue, false, deceitful, inconsistent, and contradictory disclosures made by the company and certain members of its management team led by CEO Patrick Byrne.

Overstock.com Has a History of False and Misleading Financial Disclosures

In a previous blog post, I provided details dating back to 2000, how Patrick Byrne deceptively used non-GAAP revenues to hype Overstock.com's top-line performance, while at the same time claiming that Overstock.com was GAAP profitable, even though the company was not profitable at all.

In February 2006, Overstock.com disclosed inventory accounting errors and restated financial reports from 2002 to Q3 2005.

In January 2008, the Securities and Exchange Commission discovered that Overstock.com's revenue accounting failed to comply with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), since the company's inception. The company provided the SEC with a flawed and misleading materiality analysis to convince them that its revenue accounting error was not material. The company wanted to avoid a restatement of prior affected financial reports arising from intentional revenue accounting errors uncovered by the SEC. Instead, the company used a one-time cumulative adjustment in its Q4 2007 financial report, apparently to hide the material impact of such errors on previous affected individual financial reports. This blog detailed how Overstock.com's materiality analysis was seriously flawed and misleading and called on Overstock.com to restate its financial reports. Despite emails to Overstock.com, the company stubbornly refused to restate its financial reports.

On October 24, 2008, Overstock.com's Q3 2008 press release disclosed new customer refund and credit errors and the company warned investors that all previous financial reports issued from 2003 to Q2 2008 “should no longer be relied upon.” This time, Overstock.com said it would restate all financial reports dating back to 2003. In addition, Overstock.com reversed its one-time cumulative adjustment in Q4 2007 used to correct its revenue accounting errors and instead restated all financial statements to correct those errors, too, as I previously recommended.

However, Overstock.com continued to violate Regulation G and report a non-compliant EBITDA measure in its Q3 2008 press release. During the Q3 2008 earnings call that followed, Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne and President Jonathan E. Johnson responded to questions in my blog, posted the day earlier, about the company's non-compliance with Regulation G. Byrne and Johnson made untrue material statements and omitted material facts at they attempted to con investors into believing that its EBITDA disclosures complied with Regulation G. Afterwards, I again called on Overstock.com to change its non-compliant EBITDA measures to comply with Regulation G.

Finally, on November 10, 2008, Overstock.com amended its financial reports from Q2 2007 to Q3 2008 to comply with SEC Regulation G. However, Overstock.com still violated Regulation G by failing to fully disclose its change from using a non-compliant EBITDA measure to a compliant renamed "Adjusted EBITDA" measure.

In addition, Overstock.com warned investors in its 10-Q report that the company may be subject to future regulatory action from the Securities and Exchange Commission and litigation from shareholders seeking damages:

As a result of these errors, we may become subject to litigation and regulatory action. Although we would vigorously defend against any such actions, there can be no assurance that we would prevail. An award of damages in such suit or a regulatory penalty imposed as a result of regulatory action could be substantial and harm our business. The financial costs and the dedication of the time of management to defend such actions could also harm us financially and disrupt our business. [Emphasis added.]

Below, I will describe why Overstock.com and certain members of management may be "subject to litigation and regulatory action," including Rule 10b-5 violations, due to their willful failure to comply with SEC disclosure requirements.

Overstock.com and its Management Cannot Claim Ignorance of Disclosure Violations
Starting in November 2007, I notified Overstock.com of its Regulation G violations and material overstatements of its financial performance from using a non-compliant EBITDA in emails Cc’d to the SEC. Read receipts for those emails were acknowledged by both Overstock.com and the SEC. However, Overstock.com stubbornly continued to report a non-compliant EBITDA disclosure until November 10, 2008, when released its latest Q3 2008 10-Q report.

During the same period that Overstock.com used a non-compliant EBITDA to materially overstate its financial performance, company President Jonathan E. Johnson and CFO David Chidester unloaded stock at huge profits. During certain earnings calls, Patrick Byrne, Jonathan Johnson, and David Chidester made outright false and deceptive statements to investors in order to mislead them into believing that the company's reported EBITDA did not violate Regulation G. Their actions show a clear intent to "deceive, manipulate, or defraud investors" and should satisfy scienter requirements for a Rule 10b-5 violation.

Overstock.com Violated SEC Regulation G governing Non-GAAP Disclosures Such as EBITDA

In financial reports issued from Q2 2007 to its recent Q3 2008 press release, Overstock.com improperly reconciled its non-compliant EBITDA to operating loss, rather than net loss (the most directly comparable GAAP measure required under Regulation G guidance), and improperly removed stock-based compensation costs from its non-compliant EBITDA disclosure. As a result of Overstock.com's violations of Regulation G, the company materially overstated its non-compliant EBITDA in financial reports from Q2 2007 to Q2 2008, including comparable non-compliant EBITDA numbers for each period.

Since Overstock.com improperly reconciled its non-compliant EBITDA to operating loss, rather than net loss, EBITDA was materially overstated by the amount of non-operating items such as losses from discontinued operations in certain periods. In addition, since Overstock.com improperly removed stock-based compensation from its non-compliant EBITDA during each period, the company materially overstated EBITDA by such amounts. Therefore, Overstock.com's non-compliant EBITDA disclosure was "materially deficient" under Regulation G.

According to Regulation G, a "materially deficient" non-GAAP disclosure, such as Overstock.com's reported non-compliant EBITDA disclosure, can give rise to Rule 10b-5 violations:

Disclosure pursuant to Regulation G that is materially deficient may, in addition to violating Regulation G, give rise to a violation of Section 10(b) or Rule 10b-5 thereunder if all the elements for such a violation are present. In this regard, we reminded companies in December 2001 that, under certain circumstances, non-GAAP financial measures could mislead investors if they obscure the company's GAAP results. We continue to be of the view that some disclosures of non-GAAP financial measures could give rise to actions under Rule 10b-5.

Section 3(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act provides that a violation of that Act or the Commission's rules thereunder shall be treated for all purposes as a violation of the Exchange Act. Therefore, if an issuer, or any person acting on its behalf, fails to comply with Regulation G, the issuer and/or the person acting on its behalf could be subject to a Commission enforcement action alleging violations of Regulation G. Additionally, if the facts and circumstances warrant, we could bring an action under both Regulation G and Rule 10b-5. [Emphasis added.]

One specific issue cited by the SEC that could give rise to a Rule 10b-5 violation is that "under certain circumstances, non-GAAP financial measures could mislead investors if they obscure the company's GAAP results." One way that a non-GAAP measure can "obscure the company's GAAP results" is for a company to report a GAAP net loss while using a non-compliant EBITDA measure to produce positive financial performance.

In Q2 2008, Overstock.com originally reported a net loss of $6.463 million before its later disclosed adjustments due to accounting errors. In that same quarter, Overstock.com originally reported a non-compliant EBITDA of positive $1.117 million. If Overstock.com had reported EBITDA in compliance with Regulation G, EBITDA should have been reported at negative $430K, before adjustments due to accounting errors. Therefore, Overstock.com's non-compliant EBITDA measure in Q2 2008 clearly does "obscure the company's GAAP results."

Worse yet, later accounting errors disclosed by Overstock.com caused a further overstatement of EBITDA in the amount of $896K. Therefore, a compliant EBITDA, after adjusting for accounting errors, should have been reported at negative $1.326 million, rather than positive $1.117 million, as originally claimed by Overstock.com.

See the charts below (Click on image to enlarge):

Securities and Exchange Commission Rule 10b-5

Before we continue, let's review Securities and Exchange Commission Rule 10b-5:

It shall be unlawful for any person, directly or indirectly, by the use of any means or instrumentality of interstate commerce, or of the mails or of any facility of any national securities exchange,

a. To employ any device, scheme, or artifice to defraud,
b. To make any untrue statement of a material fact or to omit to state a material fact necessary in order to make the statements made, in the light of the circumstances under which they were made, not misleading, or
c. To engage in any act, practice, or course of business which operates or would operate as a fraud or deceit upon any person,

in connection with the purchase or sale of any security. [Emphasis added.]

Rule 10b-5 is the bedrock upon which federal securities law is built. According to Rule 10b-5, it is the presentation of "untrue statement of a material fact" or the omission of a "material fact" that gives rise to a securities fraud.

Since Overstock.com's non-compliant EBITDA measure violated Regulation G and materially overstated the company's financial performance, there is an "untrue statement of a material fact" in violation of Rule 10b-5. In addition, Overstock.com's willful failure to disclose that its non-compliant EBITDA violated Regulation G, qualifies as "unlawful...to omit to state a material fact necessary in order to make the statements made, in the light of the circumstances under which they were made, not misleading," under Rule 10b-5.

How Rule 10b-5 Applies to Regulation G Violations

SEC Regulation G states, "... if the facts and circumstances warrant, we could bring an action under both Regulation G and Rule 10b-5." According to the "General disclosure requirement" under SEC Regulation G:

Regulation G includes the general disclosure requirement that a registrant, or a person acting on its behalf, shall not make public a non-GAAP financial measure that, taken together with the information accompanying that measure, contains an untrue statement of a material fact or omits to state a material fact necessary in order to make the presentation of the non-GAAP financial measure, in light of the circumstances under which it is presented, not misleading (23). [Emphasis added.]

The language of Regulation G's general disclosure requirement above, is almost the same language in Rule 10b-5. Both Regulation G and Rule 10b-5 prohibit "an untrue statement of a material fact" or the omission of a "material fact" that causes a financial disclosure to be "misleading."

Despite prior notice by me of Overstock.com violation's of Regulation G, certain members of management continued to make "untrue" statements of "material facts" and omitted other material facts in an attempt to deceive investors into believing that the company was in compliance with Regulation G. Those actions expose them to potential rule 10b-5 violations.

Untrue Statement of a Material Fact and Omission of a Material Fact during the Q2 2008 Earnings Call and Q2 2008 Financial Reports

During the Q2 2008 earnings call, both CEO Patrick Byrne and CFO David Chidester made "untrue" statements of a "material fact" and omitted other material facts in an effort to mislead investors about Overstock.com's failure to comply with SEC Regulation G and overstate the company's financial performance. See below:

Patrick Byrne: Great. Slide number 10. EBITDA and this excludes stock based compensation. Do you want to mention that Dave? Do you want to – ?

David Chidester: Just – there is different ways people calculate EBITDA I think. We just want to make sure it’s clear that our calculation of EBITDA does include stock based compensation.

Patrick Byrne: Is that the convention?

David Chidester: It’s completely the convention in our industry and I think because it’s a new – it only came about a couple of years ago, everybody pretty much excludes it when they talk about EBITDA and talk about cash earnings. [Emphasis added.]

What both Patrick Byrne and David Chidester failed to tell investors was that Overstock.com improperly reconciled its non-compliant EBITDA to operating losses, rather than net losses (the most directly comparable GAAP measure required under Regulation G guidance). In addition, Chidester falsely claimed that stock-based compensation costs can be properly excluded from EBITDA. Under Regulation G guidance, any such non-GAAP measure cannot be called EBITDA. In other words, EBITDA is strictly net income or loss (not operating income or loss), before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (nothing else can be excluded from EBITDA).

David Chidester tried to explain that:

There is different ways people calculate EBITDA I think… It’s completely the convention in our industry and I think because it’s a new – it only came about a couple of years ago, everybody pretty much excludes it when they talk about EBITDA and talk about cash earnings.

David Chidester cannot claim that following the accounting practices of other non-compliant companies validated Overstock.com’s non-compliant EBITDA disclosures. Contrary to David Chidester’s comment above, SEC Regulation G was issued more than “a couple of years ago” and became effective on March 28, 2003. Worse yet, SEC Staff Accounting Bulletin No. 99 issued way back in August 1999, expressly states that “Authoritative literature takes precedence over industry practice.” In this case, authoritative literature (Regulation G) already existed and took precedence over the so-called "industry practice" of non-compliant companies.

During the same Q2 2008 earnings call, Patrick Byrne described Overstock.com’s EBITDA performance as follows:

Well, okay. Well, EBITDA fourth consecutive quarter of positive EBITDA. Again, I am not a huge fan of this number but it is meaningful in some circumstances and it does describe something for us.

Slide 11, trailing twelve month EBITDA is now at $9.6 million. I think that has a – that’s the valley of death and we seem to be climbing out the far side.

Contrary to Patrick Byrne’s false claims above, Overstock.com did not achieve its “fourth consecutive quarter of positive EBITDA" and was not climbing out the far side" of the "valley of death."

If Overstock.com had reported EBITDA in compliance with Regulation G in Q2 2008, the company would have reported a negative EBITDA compared to a positive EBITDA in the previous quarter. Therefore, EBITDA would have dropped in Q2 2008 compared to the previous quarter. If we also take into account adjustments for subsequent accounting errors, Overstock.com would have reported a negative EBITDA in two of those four quarters (Q4 2007 and Q2 2008).

In Q2 2008, Overstock.com’s properly computed EBITDA, before subsequent accounting errors, should have been reported as $-430K and not positive $1.117 million, as originally reported. If we include later disclosed accounting error adjustments, Overstock.com should have reported a $-1.326 million EBITDA.

Overstock.com's “trailing twelve month EBITDA, before subsequent accounting errors, should have been reported at $5.145 million and not "$9.6 million" as hyped by Byrne. If we include later disclosed accounting error adjustments, Overstock.com should have reported a meager $1.229 million EBITDA. In other words, Overstock.com overstated EBITDA over seven-fold!

See the charts below (click on image to enlarge):

Statement of a Material Fact and Omissions of Material Facts during the Q2 2008 Earnings Call and Q3 2008 Press Release

During Overstock.com’s Q3 2008 earnings call, both CEO Patrick Byrne and company President Jonathan E. Johnson III, made outright materially false and misleading statements in defending the company’s non-compliant EBITDA disclosures, in response to questions raised in my blog the day before the call. The company did not permit me to participate in the call and rebut the untrue statements below:

Patrick Byrne: The claim that EBITDA is not compliant with SEC definition, nonsense. Our EBITDA reconciles to GAAP. The SEC says you have to reconcile EBITDA to GAAP. We follow, I believe, the general industry practice and the A in EBITDA, amortization of stock-based compensation, our EBITDA excludes it. Moreover we reconcile everything to GAAP. Sam Antar the Crook has pointed out as a couple of people have received comment letters. They were people who had not reconciled to GAAP. In any case, we’ve gone through this over and over with our lawyers. They’re saying you’re doing this right. Jonathan, do you want to add anything?

Jonathan Johnson: No. Our EBITDA reconciles to GAAP. End of story. [Emphasis added.]

Patrick Byrne misled investors by claiming that, “Our EBITDA reconciles to GAAP.” A non-GAAP measure, such as EBITDA, is required to be reconciled with the most “directly comparable GAAP measure” under Regulation G, and not just any GAAP measure that management feels like using.

As described above, Overstock.com improperly reconciled its non-compliant EBITDA measure to operating loss, rather than net loss, which is the most directly comparable GAAP measure under Regulation G. In addition, Byrne’s claim that following “general industry practice” somehow validated Overstock.com’s non-compliant EBITDA disclosure was utter nonsense, too. SAB No. 99 clearly requires a company to follow authoritative literature (Regulation G) over industry practice.

Patrick Byrne had claimed that, “Sam Antar the Crook has pointed out as a couple of people have received comment letters. They were people who had not reconciled to GAAP.” Patrick Byrne’s claim is untrue.

As I described in a previous blog post, the SEC required CKX Inc. and CGG Veritas to change their non-compliant EBITDA measures to conform to Regulation G. CKX Inc., like Overstock.com, reconciled its non-compliant EBITDA measure to operating income or loss (a GAAP number) but not to net income or loss which is the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure” as required by SEC Regulation G. CGG Veritas, like Overstock.com, improperly eliminated stock-based compensation expenses from its non-complaint reported EBITDA.

Patrick Byrne wanted investors to believe that stock-based compensation costs are properly excluded from EBITDA as an amortization expense. However, as cited in the SEC comment letter to CGG Veritas, the SEC did not agree with Overstock.com's claim that stock-based compensation costs are properly excludable from EBITDA.

Patrick Byrne claimed that "In any case, we’ve gone through this over and over with our lawyers." However, just two weeks later on November 11, Overstock.com issued its Q3 2008 10-Q report and changed its non-compliant EBITDA disclosures to comply with Regulation G. Therefore, the findings of this blog that Overstock.com used a non-compliant EBITDA in violation of Regulation G were vindicated by Overstock.com's revised disclosures in its Q3 2008 10-Q and other amended financial reports.

Still, Overstock.com violated Regulation G again, since the company did not fully disclose its change from a non-compliant EBITDA measure to a compliant "Adjusted EBITDA" measure.

Inconsistent EBITDA Calculations without Explanation Give Rise to Further Violations

Overstock.com simply renamed its non-compliant EBITDA disclosure to "Adjusted EBITDA" as it finally sought to correct Regulation G violations on its Q3 2008 10-Q report. The company now reconciled "Adjusted EBITDA" to net loss (the most directly comparable GAAP measure required under Regulation G), rather than operating loss, as it did in the past. By renaming its non-compliant EBITDA disclosure as “Adjusted EBITDA,” the Overstock.com can now properly eliminate stock-based compensation costs and losses from discontinued operations from “Adjusted EBITDA.”

However, the company ran afoul of Regulation G again and possibly Rule 10b-5, since it deliberately failed to make a material disclosure about changing its non-compliant EBITDA to a compliant "Adjusted EBITDA." Footnote number 23 of Regulation G, addresses the requirement of the consistent application of non-GAAP financial measures, such as EBITDA:

... registrants should consider whether a change in the method of calculating or presenting a non-GAAP financial measure from one period to another, without a complete description of the change in that methodology, complies with the requirement of Regulation G that a registrant, or a person acting on its behalf, shall not make public a non-GAAP financial measure that, taken together with the information accompanying that measure, contains an untrue statement of a material fact or omits to state a material fact necessary in order to make the presentation of the non-GAAP financial measure, in light of the circumstances under which it is presented, not misleading. [Emphasis added.]

Therefore, a company cannot change its “method of calculating or presenting a non-GAAP financial measure from one period to another, without a complete description of the change in that methodology.” If a company fails to make such a disclosure, it violates Regulation G and possibly Rule 10b-5. Overstock.com simply amended its previous financial reports to rename its non-compliant EBITDA disclosure to "Adjusted EBITDA" without any "description of the change" in that non-GAAP financial measure.

In addition, during other periods Overstock.com used inconsistent calculations to compute its non-compliant EBITDA disclosures and failed to disclose "a complete description of the change" in "methodology" used to calculate EBITDA. For example, Overstock.com’s Q2 2007 10-Q and Q3 2007 10-Q does not eliminate restructuring charges from both is reported quarterly and year-to-date reported EBITDA. I note that during fiscal year 2007, all of restructuring charges totaling $12.283 million occurred in Q1 and Q2 2007 and no other quarters. In contrast, in Overstock.com’s fiscal year 2007 10-K , the company's year-to-date EBITDA eliminates $2.169 million of the $12.283 restructuring charges that were included in previously reported year-to-date EBITDA calculations in Q2 2007 and Q3 2007.

Other False and Misleading Disclosures Relating to Overstock.com's Use of EBITDA

In Overstock.com's Q3 2008 press release, the company made materially false and misleading disclosures in describing why it used EBITDA in its financial reports:

We believe that, because our current capital expenditures are lower than our depreciation levels, discussing EBITDA at this stage of our business is useful to us and investors because it approximates cash used or cash generated by the operations of the business.

However, in its "current" period Q3 2008, Overstock.com's capital expenditures were higher than depreciation expenses, contrary to the company's disclosure above. During Q3 2008, Overstock.com's capital expenditures of $8.8 million exceeded depreciation and amortization expenses of $5.6 million by $3.2 million or 57%. In Overstock.com's Q3 2008 10-Q report issued about two weeks later, the company changed its misleading disclosure.

EBITDA is Used as a Measure of Valuation by Investors

In a letter (page 18) to the SEC, Overstock.com acknowledged:

A multiple of EBITDA is currently the most standard measure of valuation in the industry.

Various analyst reports issued by Scott W. Devitt from Stifel Nicholas, Shawn C. Milne from Oppenheimer, and Justin Post from Merrill Lynch have valued Overstock.com in terms of multiples of EBITDA. Therefore, a material overstatement of reported EBITDA by Overstock.com results in a materially significant over-valuation of the company and causes investors to buy stock and allows insiders to sell stock at overvalued prices.

Insiders Unload Shares as Overstock.com Reports Materially Overstated EBITDA

During the same period that Overstock.com used a non-compliant EBITDA and materially overstated its financial performance, both company President Jonathan Johnson and CFO David Chidester sold stock at substantial profits. In April 2008, Jonathan Johnson unloaded 55,922 shares at an average price of $17.11 per share (Source: Form 4 here and here). In May 2008, David Chidester sold 2,766 shares of common stock at an average price of about $27.80 per share and pocketed about $77,000 in gross proceeds. Last Friday, Overstock.com closed at just $6.80 per share.

Recent stock sales this year by CFO David Chidester are subject to the clawback provisions under Sarbanes-Oxley Section 304. David Chidester's false and misleading comments during the Q2 2008 earnings call described above, certainly qualify as "misconduct" under Sarbanes-Oxley 304. It is unfortunate that Section 304 only applies to CEOs and CFOs and not necessarily to Jonathan Johnson, as President of the company.

The SEC and shareholders seeking damages will have to sue the company, its board of directors, and management to recover damages and seek to enjoin the company and its officers from making up new lies to investors and stop further securities law violations. Overstock.com's D & O carrier may have substantial future claims to contend with.

To be continued....

Written by:

Sam E. Antar (former Crazy Eddie CFO and a convicted felon)

Disclosure: Not long or short Overstock.com