eBay and former executives have agreed to pay nearly $50 million (£37.5m) to a Massachusetts couple who said the former executives carried out a bizarre campaign of harassment against them that included mailing them live spiders, a funeral wreath and a bloody Halloween pig’s mask in retaliation for their reporting on the e-commerce firm.

The parties reported reaching a tentative settlement in February, but were unable to finalise it until now.

Under the agreement with David and Ina Steiner, founders of newsletter EcommerceBytes, an additional $7m will be paid in charitable donations, including to organisations supporting free speech rights.

The settlement includes $46.15m in compensation from eBay, $2m from former chief executive Devin Wenig, $500,000 from former senior vice president Wendy Jones, and $50,000 from former chief communications officer Steve Wymer.

“We hope that this case will serve as a deterrent,” Ina Steiner told reporters.

The couple initially filed their lawsuit in Boston federal court in 2021, alleging a conspiracy in 2019 to “intimidate, threaten to kill, torture, terrorise, stalk and silence them” in order to “stifle their reporting on eBay”.

“What the Steiners were subjected to by former eBay employees in 2019 was wrong, reprehensible and should never have happened,” eBay said in a statement.

In 2020, federal prosecutors charged seven former eBay employees, alleging they carried out a coordinated harassment campaign against the Steiners.

Most of the defendants pleaded guilty to charges including conspiracy and cyberstalking and were sentenced to prison terms or home confinement.

In 2024, eBay reached a deferred prosecution agreement with federal authorities and paid a $3m fine.