Arosa Investment Management LLC, the beneficial owner of approximately 9.9% of the shares of Datatrak International, Inc. (OTC:DTRK) that initiated a proxy contest and obtained the most votes at two scheduled annual meetings that Datatrak management abruptly postponed, again refutes Datatrak’s shameless and phony campaign of misinformation targeted against Arosa.
Datatrak claims in its late-night December 29 press release (postponing the December 30 annual meeting) to have suddenly obtained “smoking gun evidence” linking Arosa to what Datatrak vaguely describes as “serious misconduct.” Datatrak also claimed to have suddenly obtained “new information” regarding the vaguely described “serious misconduct” on November 10 when it cancelled the November 11 annual meeting. Datatrak management always seems to contrive new evidence on the eve of a shareholder meeting when faced with an election defeat.
Shareholders should know that Datatrak’s latest “smoking gun” evidence is an anonymous Yahoo! profile that includes an Internet address originating in Paris, France. Yahoo! itself provided a warning with its response to Datatrak’s subpoena stating that it does not verify information provided by the users of its free and anonymous services. Anyone can open a Yahoo! e-mail account and include whatever information they want, and Datatrak knows this.
Arosa and its Managing Member Alex Tabatabai have denied involvement in the supposed misconduct underlying the phony witch hunt that we believe Datatrak and Chairman/CEO Larry Birch have concocted to mislead shareholders and provide a pretext for repeatedly delaying its annual meeting in violation of law. Arosa and Tabatabai have denied all of Datatrak’s phony allegations in a verified answer/counterclaims filed with the court, which includes a sworn verification by Tabatabai. Shareholders can view Arosa’s answer/counterclaims at our website established for this campaign, which is located at http://viewproxy.com/DTRK/ArosaInvestment/2015/. We encourage shareholders to review all of the filings made by the parties with the court in connection with Datatrak’s phony litigation.
Shareholders should know that Datatrak and Chairman/CEO Larry Birch are attempting to blame Arosa for documents publicly filed by Chairman/CEO Larry Birch himself. Birch filed these documents in 2013 to obtain a restraining order against his own spouse from spreading information about him. These documents include references to multiple, and apparently simultaneous, extramarital affairs that Birch has had with numerous women, including Datatrak’s CFO Jennifer Mabe and multiple other employees of Datatrak. Many credible sources have informed us that Larry Birch has a sordid history of using company resources to fund his aggressive and serial philandering, including with Datatrak employees. The Datatrak board conducted an internal investigation regarding these matters in 2014 with the assistance of an outside law firm. Datatrak has refused to disclose any details regarding this investigation, but instead has attempted to mislead shareholders into believing that no such investigation ever took place. We are astonished by the audacity and shamelessness demonstrated by Datatrak and Birch in seeking to blame Arosa for Birch’s own problems.
Arosa has not advertised Birch’s personal behavior with shareholders, even though we believe this behavior has involved numerous Datatrak employees and is part of Birch’s longstanding and ongoing inappropriate practices at the company, including relating to whether certain female employees and consultants have been provided excessive and/or unwarranted compensation and whether Birch has used company resources to fund his inappropriate personal activities. These matters have only now been raised by us in response to Datatrak and Birch’s phony and malicious campaign of misinformation that seeks to blame Arosa for matters for which Birch should take personal responsibility.
Datatrak deceptively states in its filings with the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court that the “truth” of the Birch documents “is not at issue here.” We believe the Birch documents are just a small glimpse into the many problems at Datatrak caused by Chairman/CEO Larry Birch, a truth that Datatrak and Birch cannot evade.
If you already voted our BLUE proxy card, you do not need to do anything further at this time. You can sit back for now, and the pain of this ordeal should soon end. Please disregard any proxy materials provided by Datatrak. You do not need to, and should not, vote “withhold” on Datatrak’s proxy card. Shareholders should simply discard Datatrak’s proxy materials.
If you need any assistance with voting a BLUE proxy card for Arosa, please contact our proxy advisor, Alliance Advisors, toll-free at 855-737-3183.
If you would like to speak with Alex Tabatabai, the Managing Member of Arosa and one of our director nominees, regarding any of these matters, you may reach him at 312-998-8755. We urge you to speak with Alex before accepting the shameless misinformation being propagated to shareholders by Chairman/CEO Larry Birch.
Arosa continues to receive strong support from shareholders and expects to again receive the most votes for its director nominees by a wide margin at the third scheduled annual meeting to be held on January 8. Arosa also expects that the January 8 meeting will finally resolve this extended ordeal, as Datatrak has agreed, in response to Arosa’s stated intention to file a motion for injunction, to submit an agreed order to the court preventing Datatrak from imposing any further extension, delay, postponement or cancellation of the annual meeting.
Arosa has vowed to shareholders that our three director nominees will work productively with the Datatrak board, management and other constituencies after the election of our director nominees is honored. It is Arosa’s strong belief that Datatrak’s relationships with all of its constituencies will only be strengthened when our director nominees are added to the board. Our director nominees will serve shareholders with honesty and integrity and will be committed to obtaining the best possible results for all shareholders.
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