Computer Associates International Inc said Friday that The US District Court in Los Angeles has dismissed all of Computer Sciences Corp’s claims against the company stemming from CA’s failed $10bn takeover bid for CSC last year. The court found that there was essentially no evidence to support CSC’s claims that CA had acquired or used any confidential CSC information in its efforts to acquire the company in early 1998.
CSC sued CA in March 1998, charging that the company and its investment banker, Bear Stearns & Co, used CSC trade secrets in connection with the tender offer. CSC had also requested that the court enjoin the tender offer, but dropped that request after the offer expired after steadfast resistance from CSC.
US District Judge Matthew Byrne dismissed all of CSC’s claims, finding that CSC had produced no evidence to support any of the charges. The claims against Bear Stearns were dropped as well. The judge also dismissed CA’s counterclaims against CSC – which sought more than $2.5bn in damages – for wrongful interference with the tender offer. CA said it will appeal that dismissal and added that it intends to seek attorneys’ fees from against CSC for its frivolous prosecution of the lawsuit.
CA chief executive Charles Wang said in a statement that the court failed to recognize the effects of CSC’s wrongful conduct concerning the tender offer. We made an entirely appropriate offer to CSC shareholders to buy their shares for a significant premium over the market price of CSC stock, Wang said. We believe that the evidence strongly supports our contentions that CSC’s ‘scorched earth’ tactics defeated the offer. The tactics included public misrepresentations about Computer Associates and racist suggestions that we could not perform national security work because I was born in China.
