John Malone, Qurate Board Accused of Stock Scheme by Investors

Qurate Retail Inc. investors filed suit in Delaware against its board—including its billionaire chairman, “cable cowboy” John Malone—claiming they engineered a series of byzantine stock transactions that transferred $52 million from the company to Malone and a top associate.

The lawsuit, made public Tuesday, accuses the board of acquiescing when Malone used gamesmanship to trigger an investment agreement provision giving the company the right to buy back his “series B” stock if an “unaffiliated” purchaser made a “bona fide offer” to buy the company’s own series B shares.

But the supposedly unaffiliated purchaser, Gregory Maffei, is a close colleague of ...