Investor Arrested After Bringing up Epstein, Ratchets Up Lawsuit Against Berkshire Hathaway

A watchdog group whose chief was arrested at a corporate shareholder meeting after bringing up Jeffrey Epstein’s name asserted in court papers it was an “unprecedented” crackdown on speech for shareholders of publicly-traded companies. 

Peter Flaherty, chairman of National Legal and Policy Center, was arrested at the 2023 Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting, as first reported by The Daily Signal. The center filed an appeal this week in the 8th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, asking it to reverse a lower court ruling that it was a trespassing case. 

Flaherty said he and other shareholders with proposals at the meeting were invited guests, not trespassers. He asserted this hasn’t occurred before with someone on the agenda to speak. 

“I was on the agenda to speak about a shareholder proposal,” Flaherty told The Daily Signal. “The main reason for this lawsuit is to assert the right of shareholders in publicly-traded companies.” 

However, Berkshire Hathaway previously argued when seeking dismissal of the case, “Flaherty became a trespasser when he remained at the meeting after he was told to leave and second, the defendants had the right to eject him from the meeting.”

The National Legal and Policy Center, a government and corporate watchdog, is a shareholder in Berkshire Hathaway. Flaherty was on the agenda to speak. When he did, he objected to the company’s chairman and CEO Warren Buffett sending billions in donations to the Gates Foundation. 

He objected in the context of an NLPC shareholder proposal to have the positions of chairman and CEO be held by separate individuals as a matter of good corporate governance. 

He argued donations to the Gates Foundation reflected poorly on the company. Flaherty raised objections to the Gates Foundation supporting teaching in schools of left-leaning causes on race and gender. But he also brought up media reports about Gates’ interaction with Epstein, a convicted sex offender, which the Wall Street Journal reported on two days before the meeting.

After the mention of Epstein, Buffett waved for Flaherty’s mic to be cut off. After that, Flaherty was arrested for tresspassing, and taken that day to a police station. But the trespassing charge was dropped later.

The NLPC sued Berkshire Hathaway for the false arrest and assault. The lower court in Omaha, Nebraska, ruled the matter could constitute trespassing. So the center appealed to the 8th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

“Mr. Flaherty, acting on behalf of NLPC, was no trespasser, and the notion that Mr. Flaherty admitted to the contrary in Plaintiffs’-Appellants’ Amended Complaint is specious. Plaintiffs-Appellants were special invitees who had inalienable rights under state and federal law to be there and to whom the Defendants had granted permission to attend Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholder meeting and present a proposal duly reflected in the Company’s proxy statement,” the NLPC’s appellate brief says.  

Berkshire Hathaway did not respond to phone and email messages from The Daily Signal for this story. 

Buffett has donated more than $43 billion to the Gates Foundation, the Associated Press reported. However, last summer, he said after his death, his children would be in charge of philanthropy, and no more money would go to the Gates Foundation. 

Neither the Gates Foundation nor Microsoft responded to phone or email inquiries from The Daily Signal for this story. 

Bill Gates has previously said it was a “huge mistake” to ever meet with Epstein. He has also said, “I didn’t have any business relationship or friendship with him.”

Gates also said in 2021: “I had several dinners with him [Epstein], you know, hoping that what he said about getting billions of philanthropy for global health through contacts that he had might emerge. When it looked like that wasn’t a real thing, that relationship ended.”

The post Investor Arrested After Bringing up Epstein, Ratchets Up Lawsuit Against Berkshire Hathaway appeared first on The Daily Signal.