New York - WPP has filed a $13 million lawsuit against Spot Runner, the Los Angeles self-service ad creator in which it has a stake, as well as the agency's chairman-CEO, Nick Grouf, and its board for securities fraud and breach of contract, reports Ad Age. WPP claims that rather than try to improve and build up the company, Spot Runner “perpetuated a ‘pump-and-dump’ scheme in which they aggressively promoted the company to new investors (often by promoting that WPP was an investor in and supporter of the company) and then sold new investors large quantities of their own secondary shares at ever-increasing valuations.”

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http://adage.com/agencynews/article?article_id=136075

http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-wpp-sues-spot-runner/