A German court has rejected a claim for damages by DaimlerChrysler AG shareholders who said the company did not announce in proper time that former CEO Juergen Schrempp planned to step down.
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According to the Associated Press (AP), the Stuttgart state court ruled that the July 2005 announcement had been made in a timely way.
According to the report, the court found that the company had no obligation to announce Schrempp’s departure before its supervisory board made a formal decision, and was not obliged to announce earlier that discussions had taken place on a possible changeover.
Schrempp was replaced as CEO by Dieter Zetsche and news of his departure sent the stock up 10%, dismaying investors who had sold shares in the preceding days, AP added.
According to the news agency, Steffen Nolte, an official with DaimlerChrysler’s legal department, welcomed the ruling, and added that plaintiffs were seeking about EUR6.5m ($US8.5m) in damages.
Felix Weigend, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, told the Associated Press they would take their case to Germany’s Federal Court of Justice and criticised the court’s failure to hear evidence in the case.
