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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Incorporated (QCOM) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SKIP PAUL who wrote (90730)	12/23/2000 11:13:19 AM
From: CDMQ	Respond to of 152472

Recent ruling weakens suit by ex-Qualcomm workers By Bruce V. Bigelow UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER December 23, 2000 San Diego Superior Court Judge John S. Meyer postponed action yesterday in a class-action lawsuit filed by ex-Qualcomm employees who allege that they were improperly denied stock options, but he dealt a devastating blow to the case in a ruling earlier this month. Meyer ruled Dec. 8 that a bonus retention plan offered to more than 1,000 Qualcomm employees was validly accepted by more than 800 workers, and he dismissed them from the case. About 35 former Qualcomm employees remain as part of the lawsuit, although attorneys for Qualcomm have asked the judge to decertify their class-action status, arguing that each case should be tried individually. The ruling greatly reduces the stakes for Qualcomm, which by some estimates faced as much as $400 million in damages if the entire class had been included in the case. In yesterday's hearing before Meyer, Qualcomm attorneys asked the judge to dismiss certain fraud allegations made by the former employees. But Meyer decided to postpone the matter, saying he would hear arguments over the fraud allegations and Qualcomm's request to decertify the class action Jan. 19. A trial in the case has been tentatively scheduled to begin Feb. 16. The lawsuit was filed in 1999, after Qualcomm sold its wireless network equipment business to rival Ericsson as part of an agreement to end a long-running feud over patents and other matters. More than 1,000 employees who worked in the Qualcomm division were transferred to Ericsson as part of the sale, but they were not allowed to cash in their options to buy discounted shares of Qualcomm stock. Their angst only deepened as the value of Qualcomm shares skyrocketed more than 2,600 percent in 1999, largely in reaction to the Qualcomm-Ericsson truce. Some of the ex-employees held options worth more than $1 million. In a bid to mollify the former employees, Qualcomm offered what it called a bonus retention plan that would give the employees a percentage of their unvested stock options if they signed a release saying they would not pursue legal action. About 97 percent of the employees signed the release, although many of them later decided to join the lawsuit as plaintiffs anyway. In his ruling earlier this month, Meyer upheld the validity of those signed releases. "The essence of this case is fairly simple," he wrote. The plaintiffs claim that Qualcomm breached their employment contract by denying them accelerated vesting of their stock options. Qualcomm maintains that these employees signed a full release that included compensation -- which they have accepted. Because of that, the judge excluded them from the case.