Not too surprisingly, IBM Corp faces a consolidated class action lawsuit that could cost it and its insurers up to $5,000m over its statements that the dividend would not be cut only a month before it did slash it, but the company reckons it has a secret weapon in its defence of the suit: we hear it has gone to the experts and hired the law firm of Milberg, Weiss, Bershad, Hynes & Lerach of San Francisco – those that follow the field of shareholder class actions reckon Milberg and friends have initiated some 70% of all such suits – and while drawing on such vast experience, they will have to have a mind-set transplant before they are ready to plead for the defence.
