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PeopleSoft sues Oracle
Company seeks to stop Oracle from taking its $16-a-share cash bid to PeopleSoft shareholders.
June 13, 2003: 7:18 PM EDT

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - PeopleSoft, which is the subject of a hostile takeover bid from rival software company Oracle, filed a lawsuit against Oracle in a California county court on Friday.

In a written statement, PeopleSoft alleged that Oracle engaged in unfair business practices, trade libel and tortious interference with PeopleSoft's customer relationships. PeopleSoft said it is seeking to block Oracle from bringing its $16-a-share cash offer to PeopleSoft shareholders.

PeopleSoft described Oracle's offer as "a sham tender offer aimed at destroying PeopleSoft's business." Oracle has said that if its bid for PeopleSoft is successful, the company intends to stop selling PeopleSoft products and try and switch customers to Oracle's software.

"By making an offer with the acknowledged intent of eliminating PeopleSoft's business, Oracle seeks to disrupt PeopleSoft's efforts to complete new sales, thus, effectively damaging PeopleSoft's business even if Oracle never buys a single share of PeopleSoft stock," PeopleSoft CEO Craig Conway said in the statement.

The suit came one day after PeopleSoft rejected Oracle's unsolicited $5.1 billion bid, first announced a week ago. Another software company, J.D. Edwards (JDEC: Research, Estimates), which PeopleSoft agreed to acquire on June 2, also filed two lawsuits against Oracle on Thursday, one in J.D. Edwards' home state of Colorado and the other in California.

PeopleSoft's decision to take this battle to the courts is a departure from what was expected. earlier in the week. On Tuesday, Oracle said that PeopleSoft withdrew planned legal action and expressed hope that this meant PeopleSoft would be willing to discuss the offer.

Oracle (ORCL: Research, Estimates) reaffirmed its interest in PeopleSoft during its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings conference call on Thursday. The company could not immediately be reached on Friday.

Shares of PeopleSoft (PSFT: Research, Estimates) fell 2.6 percent to $16.92 on Friday and are now trading just 5.8 percent above Oracle's offering price.  Top of page




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Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.