San Francisco, Nov 18: PeopleSoft Inc. on Monday corrected a regulatory filing from last week, saying a change in control of its board would not automatically trigger millions of dollars in refund payments to customers. Under the new language filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday, customer refunds would kick in only when a change in board control leads to the sale of PeopleSoft, which is battling a USD 7.3 billion hostile takeover bid from rival software company Oracle Corp.
Potential liabilities related to PeopleSoft's customer assurance program, which many analysts see as an anti-takeover measure, were about $807 million as of Sept. 30. Oracle last week claimed in its revised lawsuit against PeopleSoft that the refund program could make it prohibitively expensive to complete its proposed takeover.
A PeopleSoft spokesman said Monday's correction was the result of an administrative error in last week's filing. The company said it does not believe any customer contracts contained the language incorrectly filed with the SEC, and that the erroneous language was not verbally communicated to customers.
Bureau Report