Class action non-lawsuit?

Factual Questions
1

A subscription Web site that covered the industry in which I work appears to have gone out of business. The site is still there, but it hasn’t been updated since November. The proprietor isn’t answering e-mails.

I have good reason to believe that he has abandoned it and gone on to other things, and has no plans to make good on the unserved portion of his customers’ subscriptions. I have no hard information, but he probably had around 200-300 subscribers at about $400-$500 each. So his total liability is under $150,000, more likely less than $100,000.

He apparently can’t make good on this, so he has chosen to walk away. Ethical issues aside, it is probably a fairly safe move, since in most cases the subscriptions were bought as business expenses by businesses, and no one customer is out more than a few hundred dollars. Oh, and he’s in France, and most of his customers are in the U.S. In short, no one’s very likely to sue. (FYI, I am not a customer, just an interested observer.)

But some of the site’s assets – the database he developed and the custom software written for the site – are worth something to the rest of us in the industry, and it would be a shame if they were just lost whenever he stops paying the hosting bill for the cobweb site.

So I got to thinking that if we could absolve him of his liability, he might be willing to turn over the assets to an industry association that would make them available to its members. But based on the numbers I’ve outlined above, it’s probably not worth trying to launch a formal international class action lawsuit.

Is there a less formal solution? Suppose we got a significant number of his subscribers to sign a simple form agreeing to absolve him of the liability if he turns over the assets to the industry association. (The association wouldn’t be assuming the liability, but would simply make the assets available as a benefit to its members.) We probably couldn’t find everyone, or get them all to sugn up, but we could probably get a lot.

Is there any downside to at least trying this unofficial class action?

And I know you’re not my lawyer, etc. etc.

2

A class action is a lawsuit. There isn’t any such thing as a non-lawsuit class action. That said and errors of terminology aside, I don’t see why this strategy might not prevail. However, the absolution of liability would only apply to those sbscribers who are part of the amnesty. Of course, you could also file a class action and then might be able to achieve the same goals through a settlement which not only would have the power of the courts backing it, it would also apply to every potential member of the class, giving this guy more confidence that he’s done with the whole mispocha once he settles. You need to talk to a lawyer, though – maybe someone in your company GC’s office could afford to spend a couple hours on this.

–Cliffy