More Suits Filed vs. DaimlerChrysler

Thursday, November 30th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

DETROIT (AP) â€” Billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian's $8 billion lawsuit against DaimlerChrysler AG has spawned a growing pool of imitators, with three more shareholder suits filed against the automaker by Wednesday afternoon and more likely.

New York law firm Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz filed a suit seeking class-action status for all shareholders who received shares in the 1998 merger of Chrysler Corp. and Daimler-Benz AG. The lead plaintiff is Philadelphia lawyer Stanley Kops, whose profit-sharing plan holds DaimlerChrysler shares.

Jeffrey Smith, the lawyer who filed the case, said it makes similar claims to Kerkorian's suit, which accuses DaimlerChrysler chairman Juergen Schrempp of lying when selling the $34 billion deal as a merger of equals. Like Kerkorian's suit, the class action seeks to unwind the merger.

``The investors were told by Daimler-Benz that DaimlerChrysler was going to be a merger of coequals,'' Smith said Wednesday. ``Now they own shares in Daimler-Benz with a division called Chrysler.''

Two other lawsuits seeking class-action status repeating many of Kerkorian's claims have been filed by New York law firms â€” one by Schoengold & Sporn, the other by Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach.

Another New York law firm, Kirby McInerney & Squire, said late Tuesday it was preparing a similar suit.

Since shortly after the merger was completed, the value of DaimlerChrysler's shares has fallen steadily from a high of over $100 per share. DaimlerChrysler's shares were up 1 cent to close at $39.02 in trading Wednesday on the New York Stock Exchange.

Kerkorian is DaimlerChrysler's third-largest shareholder, with 4 percent. Before the merger, he owned 13.75 percent of Chrysler.