In the Netherlands, Nina Brink, chief executive of Internet provider World Online, resigned last year after it was revealed that before an initial public offering she had privately sold most of her shares in the company at approximately one-seventh of the IPO's offering price, thereby indicating she believed the deal was overpriced. Individual shareholders complained they should have been given such crucial market-moving information. Now the case has been taken up by the Dutch association of shareholders, veb, which filed a lawsuit in March against World Online and its bankers, ABN Amro and Goldman Sachs, on behalf of more than 10,000 small investors. World Online was subsequently taken over by Italian Internet provider Tiscali. DaimlerChrysler is a dramatic example of the narrowing U.S.-E.U. pay gap.
Shareholders are furious.
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