The Delaware Supreme Court in Wilmington has reinstated a shareholder lawsuit against Datapoint Corp and eight directors, including corporate raider Asher Edelman: the action reverses the December 1991 chancery court decision dismissing the original suit which charged the Edelman Group of directors with corporate waste and self dealing, and was filed in February 1987 by shareholder Stanley Heineman; it alleged that the defendants’ interlocking directorships placed them under Edelman’s control and that some of them reimbursed themselves $12m in expenses for a successful 1985 proxy fight waged by Edelman, and approved a $300,000 consulting contract with United Stockyards Corp, a company with no expertise in the computer business, but one allegedly controlled by Edelman; the suit further alleges that Edelman caused Datapoint to enter into an agreement with Edelman-controlled Arbitrage Securities, making available 20m for risk arbitrage transactions; the state’s Supreme Court remanded the case back to the chancery court because the court dismissal was an abuse of its discretion; Edelman currently owns about 15% of Datapoint’s outstanding common stock.
