WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA - Dole Food Co. CEO David Murdock and former COO Michael Carter have been ordered to pay shareholders $148 million.
According to a Market Watch report, both the current CEO and former company COO paid $13.50 a share, more than $3.00 less than the $16.24 a share Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster found it was worth. Laster stated in the report that he did not find other Dole board members and Deutsche Bank AG, the company's financial adviser, liable for any damages.
Though the plaintiffs, a group of former Dole shareholders, had sought more than $25 a share, a Delaware judge ruled the two executives pay a lump sum of $148 million back to shareholders.
Laster stated that the Dole Executives’ lowballing potential cost savings and canceling a previously announced stock buyback in the spring of 2013 drove the stock price down, according to Market Watch.
The decision follows a nine-day-long trial that took place in February. Delaware Online reported that the Vice Chancellor said Murdock and Carter had “credibility problems at trial” and demonstrated their actions were “not innocent or inadvertent, but rather intentional and in bad faith.”
Upon the ruling, Laster wrote a statement calling the award in damages "conservative relative to what the evidence could support," according to the report.
Carter, Murdock, and Dole were reportedly not immediately available for comment on the matter.
