In researching a piece on the well funded Michael Geist, I was searching for his “LawBytes” columns on Industry Canada. The search results happened to bring up some search results from within the Industry Canada contracts online database.

Several results, in fact.

October 1 to December 31, 2004
Contract 5014050 – 2004/12/20 – 2004/12/20 – $24,985.00 – http://www.ic.gc.ca/app/ic/cr/lstCntrcts.do?lang=eng&qrtr=4

April 1 to June 30, 2005
Contract 5015474 – 2005/05/12 – 2005/06/10 – $18,725.00 – http://www.ic.gc.ca/app/ic/cr/lstCntrcts.do?lang=eng&qrtr=6

July 1 to September 30, 2005
Contract 5015851 – 2005/07/18 – 2005/10/31 – $10,700.00 – http://www.ic.gc.ca/app/ic/cr/lstCntrcts.do?lang=eng&qrtr=7

April 1 to June 30, 2007
Contract 5019637 – 2007/05/09 – 2007/09/14 – $21,200.00 – http://www.ic.gc.ca/app/ic/cr/lstCntrcts.do?lang=eng&qrtr=21

July 1 to September 30, 2007
Contract 5019981 – 2007/08/13 – 2007-09/10 – $10,176.00 – http://www.ic.gc.ca/app/ic/cr/lstCntrcts.do?lang=eng&qrtr=41

Not one mention of the well-funded Geist by name, but 5 contracts for what sound essentially like some sort of nondescript “consulting” type services (e.g., “Other professional services not otherwise specified” or “management consulting”).

$85,786 in total of what appears to be government money paid to “Lawbytes, Inc.” directly.

Now what is Lawbytes, Inc.? The only associations that I can find in Google are between Industry Canada and this company. Otherwise, the company does not seem to have ever done anything.

Where else do we find the name “Lawbytes”? A few places, the odd newsletter here and there around the world, but the main place you find “lawbytes” associated with Michael Geist is his column and webaddress (which now resolves to his blog), and the only place you find it associated with Industry Canada is with nearly $100,000 of payments for unspecified consulting work.

I wonder what Lawbytes, Inc. did for that money and who its officers and directors are. For that matter, where—if anywhere—was it incorporated? If anyone has any ideas about how to find this out, I’m all ears.