Plessey Co Plc seems to be making an even better fist of defending itself from the unwanted attentions of GEC Plc this time around than it did last, and its latest grenade, lobbed into the battle yesterday, was a temporary ex-parte injunction in the High Court restraining GEC and its partner, Siemens AG from pursuing the bid until the court has had a chance to consider Plessey’s complaint that by ganging up on it, GEC and the Munchener are in contravention of the Treaty of Rome, and that the bid is therefore unlawful and void; Plessey is hopeful that its move has been successfully timed to prevent the mailing of the offer documents, which are required to be posted by the 28th day after the bid was made, which falls next Wednesday; the court is due to decide on Monday whether to extend the injunction until a full hearing can be held on Plessey’s complaint – and court time for that is unlikely to be found until the New Year; the market was impressed by Plessey’s tactic – it marked the company’s shares down 8p to 209p against the 225 pence of the offer.
