Thursday, December 27, 2012

Porsche wins dismissal of U.S. hedge fund lawsuit over VW





Porsche Automobil Holding SE on Thursday won the dismissal of a New York lawsuit by 26 hedge funds that accused the German automaker of causing more than $1 billion of losses by cornering the market in Volkswagen AG shares.  Reuters reports that a five-justice panel of the New York State appeals court in Manhattan unanimously found that Porsche had met its "heavy burden" to establish that the state was the wrong place in which to bring the lawsuit.  That panel reversed an August 6 ruling by New York State Supreme Court Justice Charles Ramos that let the case by hedge funds including Glenhill Capital LP, David Einhorn's Greenlight Capital LP and Chase Coleman's Tiger Global LP proceed.

The funds accused Porsche of engineering a "massive short squeeze" in October 2008 by quietly buying nearly all freely traded ordinary VW shares in a bid to take over the company, despite publicly stating it had no plans to take a 75 percent stake.  When Porsche revealed it had amassed control of roughly three-quarters of VW, shares of VW soared, briefly making the Wolfsburg-based carmaker the world's biggest company by market value. The surge caused losses for hedge funds that had bet on a decline in the stock price.

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