KK Vs DCX On and On

WILMINGTON, Delaware April 23, 2004; Randall Chase writing for the AP reported that lawyers for billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian have failed to prove he was deceived about the merger of DaimlerBenz and Chrysler, DaimlerChrysler attorneys argued in post-trial briefs filed Friday in Kerkorian's lawsuit.

Kerkorian is suing DaimlerChrysler for more than $1 billion, claiming that DaimlerBenz engineered a takeover of Chrysler Corp. in 1998, then cheated him out of an acquisition fee by claiming it was a merger of equals.

DaimlerChrysler insists the merger was one of equals and that Kerkorian, whose Tracinda Corp. was Chrysler's largest shareholder at the time, grew disgruntled when his stock price fell.

"Responding to defendant's dispositive pre-trial motions, Tracinda assured this court it would support its claims at trial with hard evidence of specific oral representations by Chrysler CEO Robert Eaton that were false -- specific promises about the merger that DaimlerChrysler did not keep," DaimlerChrysler attorneys said in a memorandum of law, portions of which were released by the company. "... But the trial has come and gone, and Tracinda's promises to 'show and tell' remain spectacularly unfulfilled."

Kerkorian has pointed to a 2000 interview with The Financial Times in which DaimlerChrysler chief executive officer Juergen Schrempp said the current German-heavy management of DaimlerChrysler was what he always envisioned, and that the combination of the companies was billed as a merger of equals "for psychological reasons."

DaimlerChrysler attorneys said the interview revealed nothing new about the post-merger governance of the company or its "continuing compliance" with the business combination agreement.

"Fundamentally, Tracinda's case was just made up by lawyers seeking to serve a billionaire investor still smarting from the rejection of his ill-conceived, unfinanced and failed takeover of Chrysler in 1995, who perceived he had been snubbed by Schrempp and who was frustrated by DaimlerChrysler's refusal to institute a stock buyback program," DaimlerChrysler attorneys wrote.

Details of Tracinda's filing, which will not be docketed and made public until Monday, were not immediately available.

Wilmington attorney Alan Stone, who is helping represent Kerkorian, referred questions to Kerkorian's lead attorney, Terry Christensen, who did not immediately return a telephone message.

Final briefs in the case are to be filed next month. U.S. District Judge Joseph Farnan Jr., who presided over a 13-day bench trial that began in December, has given no indication when he will rule.