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Lernout CEO steps down
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August 25, 2000: 7:14 a.m. ET
Stock spurts as Bastiaens quits amid alleged sales discrepancies
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LONDON (CNNfn) - Shares in Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products NV rose 4.1 percent on Friday after Chief Executive Gaston Bastiaens resigned amid an audit into alleged discrepancies in sales information.
Lernout named John Duerden, 59, as the new chief executive. Currently the CEO of the company's Health Care Solutions Group, Duerden was before that chairman and chief executive of Dictaphone Corp., the U.S. maker of dictation equipment and call center systems that Lernout (LHSP: Research, Estimates) acquired in May.
Shares in the Belgian speech technology company were up  1.42 at 35.95 on the pan-European Easdaq market in Brussels. On Thursday, Lernout's stock closed at 34-11/16 on Nasdaq in the U.S., more than 50 percent below its 52-week high of 72-1/2, but up from a low of 15-1/4.
Lernout in August commissioned accounting firm KPMG to conduct a special audit after the Wall Street Journal alleged discrepancies in its sales information.
The WSJ said some Korean companies that Lernout had identified as customers denied having done any business with it. The news, which sent Lernout's stock tumbling nearly 20 percent in a day, prompted shareholders to file two separate lawsuits against the company. 
--from staff and wire reports
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Lernout & Hauspie
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