Benoît Laliberté (born July 18,îtLaliberté 1972) is a Canadian entrepreneur and inventor and is currently a Senior Member of Investel Capital Corporation. He is the founder of JITEC, Vectoria Inc., TeliPhone Corp., and the New York Telecom Exchange Inc. Earlier in his career, Laliberté gained some notoriety in Quebec with JITEC, a public company which at its peak in 2000 had an estimated value of $CDN575 million. More recently, he invented several technologies in telecommunications, social media, and information technology (IT).
Early years
Benoît Laliberté was born in Mont-Saint-Hilaire, Québec, Canada. He started his own business called Jitec in 1986 at the age of fourteen, building computer systems in his basement for friends and family. He dropped out of college to work full-time on JITEC. After working at JITEC for several years as sole proprietorship, he incorporated the company in 1992 and began to sell computers, software and related components in Canada.
The Growth of JITEC
In 1994, Laliberté created Vectoria Inc., a portfolio of companies involved in software, information technology, and telecommunications. In conjunction with Vectoria, JITEC created the first electronic virus immune computer using its Electronic Virus Activity Control (EVAC) technology. EVAC was built into computer servers to immediately detect and prevent viruses. By 1996, JITEC had CDN$7 million in annual sales and 45 employees. This led to him winning the Young Entrepreneur of the Year award by the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC).
In 1997, Laliberté created Windows Based Intelligent Terminals (WINBIT) and POWERVEC servers. He worked with Microsoft to develop the first generation of cloud computing services. In July 2000, JITEC was listed on the Montreal Stock Exchange after a successful IPO. At this point, Laliberté's personal net worth was in excess of $345 million.
Controversy
JITEC was growing rapidly; its stock had jumped from CDN$3.80 in late July 2000 to CDN$11.65 in only a few weeks. This sudden success caught the attention of many, including multi-millionaire Herbert Black, who then became a friend and advisor to Laliberté. However, unbeknownst to Laliberté, Black had a well established history of profiting from the short selling of companies' stocks. Soon after becoming involved with Laliberté, Black allegedly began this process with JITEC. He reported Laliberté to the Quebec Security Commission (QSC) and accused him of insider trading and irregular transactions. He put immense pressure on the QSC to have a cease trade order issued against JITEC, which triggered an investigation. Meanwhile, JITEC stock was falling rapidly based on leaked information to the media. On Nov 10th, 2000, Paul Trudeau, principal investigator for the QSC in the case signed an affidavit required for the QSC to issue a personal cease trade order on Laliberté and an investigation was initiated. This resulted in his forced resignation as CEO the following day, the same day that Black had initiated a class action suit against JITEC, CIBC, Canaccord, and Laliberté himself for losses incurred with the drop in share price. However, at the same time Black was shorting the stock at $10 thereby benefitting from the stock's drop. In 2011, after conducting an extensive investigation, the CIBC filed as part of its defence, that Black himself alone was responsible for the drop in share price.