Paris - Airbus chief Thomas Enders and senior managers from
Franco-German aerospace giant EADS plan to sue the supervisors of the
Paris bourse, AMF, to counter claims of insider trading, Deutsche
Presse-Agentur dpa learned from industry sources Saturday.
One of the major shareholders in EADS, Lagardere, had already
announced its plans to take legal steps to recover damages.
It is also possible that the parties will take out a civil action
for prejudgment.
Enders has already protested to AMF that his company had suffered
a damaged reputation as a result of leaks to the press and has
demanded that the supervisors to complete their investigations
promptly and communicate their findings appropriately.
He assured his management colleagues that he 'would exhaust all
the legal opportunities to ensure the rights of the Airbus employees
affected.'
Reports in the Paris press about a preliminary report from the AMF
have fuelled suspicions that practically all of the senior managers
at EADS and major shareholders Lagardere and DaimlerChrysler used
insider knowledge about problems completing the Airbus A380 at the
end of 2005, beginning of 2006 to make lucrative share deals.
Enders earned more than 700,000 euros (988,000 dollars) in
November 2005 as joint head of EADS with options for 50,000 shares.
Enders told Germany's Focus magazine that he did not have a guilty
conscience about his earnings as the extent of the problems with the
Airbus A380 were not known at that time.
The share options were part of his salary deal, he said.
When other senior managers were selling off shares in March 2006,
Enders refrained from doing the same.
As recently as May, Airbus head Gustav Humbert said at the board
of directors meeting that he expected the company to make up in part
the delay in supplying the A380, but in June new delays were
announced and the company's share price collapsed.
EADS' share price seems unaffected by the new insider-trading
rumours: on Friday it closed up 0.38 per cent on the Frankfurt Stock
Exchange at 22.32 euros.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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