Press Room
June 6, 2002
More Firms Named in Microsoft Options Suits
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Staff and News
Services
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
The legal attack is broadening against
brokerage firms alleged to have given poor or misleading
financial advice about stock options to Microsoft
Corp. employees.
Klayman & Toskes, P.A., a San Francisco law
firm, is preparing to file a suit against UBS PaineWebber
Inc.'s Long Beach, Calif., office on behalf of
a Bellevue-based Microsoft employee, said Lawrence
Klayman, a partner in that firm.
The firm has filed a case against the Cupertino,
Calif., branch of Morgan Stanley Dean Witter on
behalf of a Microsoft employee in San Francisco,
Klayman said.
It also has filed suits against Salomon Smith Barney
and Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. Both those firms
have also been targeted by the Seattle firm of
Hagens Berman LLP.
The suits allege that the firms violated securities
laws and contractual obligations in advising clients
how best to exercise Microsoft's stock options.
Some Microsoft employees were bankrupted as a result.
The suits will be arbitrated rather than heard
in court, as brokerage firms routinely require
clients to waive the right to a courtroom trial.
