REDWOOD SHORES, Calif., May 23,
2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, four plaintiffs' law firms
agreed to pay Oracle Corporation $270,000 to avoid Oracle's motion for sanctions
over their misconduct in a lawsuit related to Oracle's acquisition
of Micros Systems, Inc. in Case No. 13-C-14-099672, in the
Circuit Court for Howard County, Maryland.
In 2014, Brower Piven, Robbins
Arroyo LLC, Weisslaw LLC, and Pomerantz, LLP, along with other
firms, sued Micros and its directors, claiming that Micros's
shareholders were not adequately informed about the transaction and
that Oracle's offer price was too low. The firms also sued
Oracle for aiding and abetting the Micros board, despite the fact
that Oracle simply engaged in arm's-length negotiations to obtain
the best price possible. The trial court dismissed all claims
with prejudice against all defendants, including Oracle, and then
courts at every level of the state system rejected five subsequent
motions for reconsideration and appeals brought by these firms,
affirming the trial judge's finding that "with respect to Oracle,
the Plaintiffs have failed to allege any acts, alleged acts, by
agents or employees or Oracle that were impermissible under the
law. The mere fact that Oracle pursued the merger is
insufficient." The outrageous litigation conduct drew the
sanctions motion by Oracle, which the four firms identified above
agreed to settle rather than defend.
"This substantial monetary settlement reflects the strength of
our sanctions motion for what Oracle believes was clearly a
"strike" suit brought against Oracle. For more than a decade,
plaintiffs' lawyers have brought these suits, challenging
legitimate public mergers, in order to line their own pockets at
the expense of shareholders. We are grateful that the
Maryland courts recognized that
the claims had no merit, and we urge other public companies to
challenge these baseless suits. Shareholders' attorneys
cannot simply claim and collect what is effectively an unwarranted
tax on mergers," said Dorian Daley,
Oracle's General Counsel.
About Oracle
The Oracle Cloud offers complete SaaS
application suites for ERP, SCM and CX, plus best-in-class database
Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
from data centers throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information about Oracle (NYSE:
ORCL), visit oracle.com.
Trademarks
Oracle and Java are registered trademarks
of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of
their respective owners.
View original
content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/plaintiffs-law-firms-to-pay-oracle-270-000-to-settle-sanctions-motion-300653792.html
SOURCE Oracle