Relief Arrives for Oracle Leadership
June 16, 2009 by Mark Ellis
Filed under Business
After eight years of intense legal conflict, a judge has finally thrown out the lawsuit against Oracle CEO Larry Ellison of insider trading and deceiving investors. According to the judge, Susan Illston, lawyers failed to provide enough conclusive evidence that any of this ever went on, leaving the judge no choice but to dismiss the charges.
The lawsuit arose when Oracle missed an earnings report back in 2001 and blamed it on an economic slump. Investors quickly rose to blame the nonexistent earnings forecast on problems with software, bad accounting, and poor judgment, things that the Oracle leadership were aware of but never revealed to shareholders.
It came as no surprise when Oracle denied any wrongdoing in court. The fact that Ellison sold stocks in the midst of the economic slump was because he was holding stock options that had to be sold in a certain time period or they would lose their value.
Oracle's Larry Ellison (Image: Flickr)
