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Technology Stocks : HWP -- Hewlett Packard -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: stockman_scott who wrote (4612)	4/26/2002 1:26:38 PM
From: Dave B	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 4722

Judge To Render Verdict in HP and Hewlett Testimony Apr 26, 2002 (NewsFactor.com via COMTEX) -- After three days of testimony and often-heated exchanges, the Delaware Chancery Court judge presiding over the trial between Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HWP) and dissenting board member and shareholder Walter Hewlett has said he will issue a decision "very quickly." Rather than taking final statements from both sides, Judge William B. Chandler III said he will examine post-trial briefs from the two adversaries. The briefs must be filed no later than midnight Friday to be considered in the judge's decision. Despite testy exchanges between HP CEO Carly Fiorina and Hewlett attorney Stephen Neal, Fiorina expressed confidence that Judge Chandler will rule in favor of HP. At its annual meeting Friday, HP is expected to announce that it will officially merge with Compaq (NYSE: CPQ) on May 7th. Damaging Transcript On Thursday, Neal showed Fiorina a transcript of a conference call between HP and Deutsche Asset Management executives, in which the HP side urged the Deutsche side to vote in favor of the merger. "This is obviously of great importance to us as a company, and it's of great importance to our ongoing relationship," the transcript read. "We very much would like to have your support here. We think this is a crucially important decision for the company." HP Disputes Implications Although Neal argued that the contents of the transcript imply that Deutsche Bank was coerced into voting for the merger, Fiorina asserted that HP was simply expressing its appreciation for Deutsche Bank's help and that it hoped it could work with its asset management team in the future. Later on Thursday, HP released a statement saying that Hewlett's team failed to prove its claims of untoward activities with regard to either Deutsche Bank or HP shareholders. "HP's management and Board members demonstrated over and over again that they acted properly and consistently in the interest of shareholders," the statement read. "We look forward to the Chancellor's ruling and will continue to prepare the launch of the new HP." No Smoking Gun Rob Enderle, lead HP analyst at Giga Information Group , told NewsFactor that Judge Chandler has a difficult decision to make and probably would have preferred a more clearly defined sense of misconduct on either side. "There were indications of wrongdoing, but they fell short of [being the] smoking gun," that would have enabled the judge to rule against HP, Enderle said. SEC Response Still Possible While Judge Chandler may not have enough evidence to rule against HP, this week's trial may have unearthed enough evidence for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to take action, according to Enderle. He noted that at the very least, the SEC will revisit the action so that the rights and wrongs of similar situations will be more clearly defined in the future. By Robyn Weisman URL: hp.com compaq.com gigaweb.com Copyright (C) 2002, NewsFactor Network. All rights reserved