Cooper Companies (COO)

Levine v. The Cooper Cos., Inc., et al.

On February 15, 2006, Alvin L. Levine filed a putative securities class action lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, Case No. SACV-06-169 CJC, against the Company, A. Thomas Bender, its Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer and a director, Robert S. Weiss, its Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer and a director, and John D. Fruth, a director. Two similar putative class action lawsuits were also filed in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, Case Nos. SACV-06-306 CJC and SACV-06-331 CJC. On May 19, 2006, the Court consolidated all three actions under the heading In re Cooper Companies, Inc. Securities Litigation and selected a lead plaintiff and lead counsel pursuant to the provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, 15 U.S.C. § 78u-4.

The lead plaintiff filed a consolidated complaint on July 31, 2006. The consolidated complaint was filed on behalf of all purchasers of the Company’s securities between July 28, 2004, and December 12, 2005, including persons who received Company securities in exchange for their shares of Ocular in the January 2005 merger pursuant to which the Company acquired Ocular. In addition to the Company, Messrs. Bender, Weiss, and Fruth, the consolidated complaint names as defendants several of the Company’s other current officers and directors and one former officer. On July 13, 2007, the Court granted Cooper’s motion to dismiss the consolidated complaint and granted the lead plaintiff leave to amend to attempt to state a valid claim.

On August 9, 2007, the lead plaintiff filed an amended consolidated complaint. As before, the amended consolidated complaint was filed on behalf of all purchasers of the Company’s securities between July 28, 2004, and December 12, 2005, including persons who received Company securities in exchange for their shares of Ocular in the January 2005 merger pursuant to which the Company acquired Ocular. In addition to the Company, the amended consolidated complaint names as defendants Messrs. Bender, Weiss, Fruth, Steven M. Neil, the Company’s Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and Gregory A. Fryling, CooperVision’s former President and Chief Operating Officer.

The amended consolidated complaint purports to allege violations of Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934 by, among other things, contending that the defendants made misstatements concerning the Biomedics^® product line, sales force integration following the merger with Ocular, the impact of silicone hydrogel lenses and financial projections. The amended consolidated complaint also alleges that the Company improperly accounted for assets acquired in the Ocular merger by improperly allocating $100 million of acquired customer relationships and manufacturing technology to goodwill (which is not amortized against earnings) instead of to intangible assets other than goodwill (which are amortized against earnings), that the Company lacked appropriate internal controls and issued false and misleading Sarbanes-Oxley Act certifications.

On October 23, 2007, the Court granted in-part and denied in-part Cooper and the individual defendants’ motion to dismiss. The Court dismissed the claims relating to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act certifications and the Company’s accounting of assets acquired in the Ocular merger. The Court denied the motion as to the claims related to alleged false statements concerning the Biomedics^® product line, sales force integration, the impact of silicone hydrogel lenses and the Company’s financial projections. On November 28, 2007, the Court also dismissed all claims against Mr. Fruth with leave to amend. Plaintiff did not amend their consolidated amended complaint within the time permitted by the Court. On December 3, 2007, the Company and Messrs. Bender, Weiss, Neil and Fryling answered the amended consolidated complaint. The Company intends to defend this matter vigorously.

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