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To: RockyBalboa who wrote (14634)	1/5/2001 6:35:01 AM
From: RockyBalboa	Respond to of 18998

Thursday January 4, 12:20 pm Eastern Time Belgian court probes L&H co-founder Hauspie BRUSSELS, Jan 4 (Reuters) - A founder and former co-chairman of troubled speech technology company Lernout & Hauspie (Nasdaq:LHSEQ - news) is being investigated for possible money laundering, a Belgian judge said on Thursday. Examining Judge Kristof Vulsteke said he launched an investigation after a court probe into alleged financial fraud at L&H found an undisclosed amount of money in Pol Hauspie's private bank account which could not be accounted for. ``I have opened a formal investigation based on the evidence given to me by the local prosecutor,'' Vulsteke told Reuters in a phone interview. L&H is also being investigated by U.S. and European regulators and faces a slew of shareholder lawsuits for allegedly misrepresenting its sales. Once one of Europe's brightest technology stars, L&H's stock has lost nearly all of its value and has been delisted by Nasdaq. The Belgian judicial system includes a class of judges who have the power to launch investigations, similar to probes launched by public prosecutors, but with the additional power to conduct searches for evidence. Vulsteke had taken over the investigation into L&H from the Ieper Public Prosecutor's Office last month. Vulsteke said the new, separate investigation would include Hauspie's wife and a number of other unidentified people. He declined to elaborate. Frank Van Leemput, one of the lawyers representing Hauspie, declined to comment, but said his client was ``fully cooperating'' with the authorities. Hauspie and Jo Lernout stepped down in November as co-chairmen and managing directors of the company they founded in 1987 after L&H said it would restate results for the 2-1/2 years ended June 30, 2000, following the discovery by an internal audit of ``certain errors and irregularities''. Hauspie, a former accountant, resigned as a director on November 23. He has remained out of public view during the last few months, apparently for medical reasons. Hauspie and Lernout still own 30 percent of L&H and control the appointment of most of the board's members. Officials at L&H declined comment on the new probe. Debt-laden L&H is awaiting a judge's decision on Friday on its new request for protection from creditors. L&H, which is already operating under bankruptcy protection in the United States where it has dual headquarters, recently said its internal audit committee had found that its revenues for the last two and a half years had been overstated by as much as $277 million.