International Herald Tribune
04-10-2006
Stichting Pensioenfonds ABP, Europe's biggest pension fund, said it received a settlement of $20 million from Time Warner relating to the media company's 2001 merger with America Online. The pension fund sued Time Warner, based in New York, for $150 million in damages after Time Warner and AOL together restated two years of results and cut revenue by $190 million in 2002. The settlement also will cover legal costs related to the suit, ABP, based in Heerlen, the Netherlands, said in a statement Saturday. The settlement ends ABP's action against Time Warner, the pension fund said. Time Warner, the world's largest media company, on Friday won final approval for a plan to pay $2.55 billion to other shareholders to settle a class-action lawsuit over the America Online merger. Plaintiffs in the class-action suit claimed AOL misrepresented financial results before agreeing to buy Time Warner at the height of the Internet boom, in the largest acquisition ever. The suit accused AOL of improperly accounting for dozens of advertising deals, inflating revenue for 15 quarters from 1998 to 2002. ABP decided to opt out of the class-action lawsuit and sue Time Warner independently. Rene Maatman, chief counsel at ABP, was quoted Saturday in Het Financieele Dagblad as saying ABP would have received only $1 million to $3 million if it had participated in the larger suit.
2006 Copyright International Herald Tribune. http://www.iht.com
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