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Regulators probe Lernout
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September 21, 2000: 7:56 a.m. ET
SEC reviews financial reports of Belgian speech tech firm; shares crash
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LONDON (CNNfn) - Speech technology company Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products NV said Thursday the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating its past financial statements.
The probe follows the Belgian company's announcement last momth that it had commissioned a special audit by accounting firm KPMG after a Wall Street Journal report last month alleged discrepancies in Lernout's sales information.
Lernout (LHSP: Research, Estimates), a maker of software for speech recognition, dictation, and translation, said it would cooperate with the SEC and that its audit committee had begun investigating and had retained legal counsel.
 The newspaper reported on Aug. 8 that some South Korean companies that Lernout had identified as customers denied having done any business with it.
Shareholders have filed lawsuits against the company.
Chief Executive Gaston Bastiaens resigned on Aug. 25 after the special audit was commissioned.
John Duerden, the new chief executive, said in a statement that Lernout has not yet received the results of the audit.
Lernout shares plunged 22 percent to  18.70 on the pan-European Easdaq exchange in Brussels. The stock closed down 14 percent on the U.S. Nasdaq market on Wednesday.
The company's shares had traded around $38 before the Journal report, and earlier hit a 52-week high of $72.50. 
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Lernout & Hauspie
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