LINTHICUM, Md. Sept. 16 -Ciena alleges in a quarterly report to the Securities and Exchange Commission that shortsellers and competitors conspired to foil the company's merger with Tellabs. "The company believes certain of the media coverage was substantially influenced by orchestrated activities of one or more shortsellers, and a competitor of the company," the company said in the report filed Monday.
CIENA AND TELLABS called off their planned merger on Monday, saying the recent drop in Ciena's stock made it unlikely the deal would be approved by shareholders.
Ciena shares plunged below $16 last week after trading at more than $80 a share as recently as July.
"The company has also been accumulating evidence that a competitor may have engaged in targeted and legally questionable activities in order to undermine the company's market position as well as the proposed merger with Tellabs," the documents filed with the SEC said.
The filing mentions the timing of an Aug. 21 telephone call by AT&T officials informing Ciena officials that ATT would no longer test Ciena's equipment. Ciena had hoped AT&T would be a significant buyer of its equipment.
The phone call came an hour before Ciena and Tellabs shareholders were to vote on the Ciena-Tellabs merger, which was postponed following the announcement.
"We think we know what happened now, but we are not prepared to talk about it publicly," Ciena spokesman Denny Bilter said.
AT&T spokesman Dave Johnson said his company would not comment on the filing.
"The relationship between us and our vendors is considered confidential, so basically ATT has no comment to make on that topic," Johnson said.
Bilter said Ciena received a second call Aug. 21 from a top AT&T testing engineer, who had called for information about a Ciena product he was testing and was shocked to learn AT&T had stopped testing Ciena products, The Daily Record reported Tuesday.
One of Ciena's biggest competitors is Murray Hill, N.J.-based Lucent Technologies, which was spun off from AT&T in 1996. While Lucent is much bigger than Ciena, the merger with Tellabs could be seen as a threat to Lucent's dominance.
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