APRIL 8, 2005

Good and bad news for Mercedes-Benz

The Mercedes-Benz company has been having a roller-coaster ride recently with the recent announcement of a recall of 1.3m vehicles because of technical problems. This has done serious damage to the company's image of being a quality car manufacturer. Jurgen Schrempp, the chief executive of Mercedes-Benz's parent DaimlerChrysler, was given a rough ride at the company's annual meeting for failing to improve the financial performance of the company. There is however some good news for the company as a judge in the United States has rejected the $1.2bn lawsuit which had been filed against the company by investor Kirk Kerkorian, who claimed that the 1998 deal between Daimler-Benz and Chrysler was not a merger as it was portrayed but rather a takeover of Chrysler and that Schrempp had fraudulently claimed it was a merger to avoid paying more. In the seven years since the merger Daimler's share price has halved.