Mylan Laboratories’ billionaire investor, Carl Icahn, has launched a new lawsuit against the generics compay, which has proposed to buy King Pharmaceuticals in a $4 billion dollar deal.
Specifically, Mr Icahn, who has been vocal of his opposition of the proposed King deal ever since it was first announced last summer [[09/09/04a]], [[14/12/04b]], is challenging the validity of recent company bylaw amendments announced by Mylan relating relate to director nominations. The lawsuit seeks “injunctive relief” to allow Mr Icahn “appropriate time to select and notify Mylan of his proposed slate of directors” at the Mylan’s next shareholders’ meeting.
On Friday, Mylan announced that it would be holding its annual shareholder meeting until October 28, 2005. Mr Icahn claims that Mylan “purported to require any director nominations to be completed within 10 days of the announcement.” He added that, in his opinion: “These amendments, in combination with a very late date for the annual meeting, represent a desperate attempt by the Mylan board to entrench itself by weakening the processes for corporate democracy at Mylan.” He says he is “very concerned” that the board could seek to avoid a shareholder vote by restructuring its transaction with King.
Mr Icahn has already filed a lawsuit against Mylan’s chief executive, Robert Coury accusing him of allowing Richard Perry to buy his shares through a process known as “hedging”, and is standing by his offer to buy Mylan himself for $20 per share [[22/11/04b]].
