By Tom Becker and Marcelo Prince Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
WILMINGTON, Del. (Dow Jones)--Day two of the trial to consider Walter Hewlett's attempt to derail Hewlett-Packard Co.'s (HWP) proposed $19 billion merger with Compaq Computer Corp. (CPQ) has become a punch-counter punch battle between H-P's chief executive and Hewlett's attorneys.
Carly Fiorina was questioned repeatedly about revenue figures included in February and March H-P documents that Hewlett's attorneys said show a decline over projections the company released in November of last year.
In his lawsuit, Hewlett charges the company with disseminating misleading financial information to shareholders with which they based their vote in a proxy contest on the merger.
Fiorina, continuing testimony from Tuesday, said the February and March numbers are not projections, rather they are individual business units' "views of their point in the planning process" and called the numbers "assessments."
"They are planning documents," she said. "It's a snapshot of the business units' current planning process."
Hewlett's side is trying to establish that the recent figures demonstrate a more accurate forecast of the results of the merger and, as forecasts, they should have been released to the shareholders before the March proxy vote.
Fiorina said the November figures are management's projections and the February and March numbers are assessments from the point of view of the individual business units.
Hewlett attorney Stephen Neal pressed Fiorina on the matter for almost two hours in a redirect that resulted in exchanges that were, at times, contentious.
At one point, Fiorina said, "You are accusing the CEO of a publicly traded company of lying."
Neal responded by saying he was just asking her a question.
(MORE) DOW JONES NEWS 04-24-02 |
