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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