Alere files suit against Abbott to force $6B buyout

Alere (NYSE:ALR) said today it filed a lawsuit against Abbott (NYSE:ABT), looking to force the company to obtain all antitrust approvals required to complete its $5.8 billion acquisition of Alere.

The complaint was filed in Delaware Chancery Court and seeks to “compel Abbott to fulfill its obligations under the terms of the merger agreement.”

“Alere will take all actions necessary to protect the interests of Alere shareholders, enforce Alere’s rights under the merger agreement and compel Abbott to complete the transaction in accordance with its terms,” the company wrote in a press release.

Alere said it expects a redacted version of the complaint to be publicly available next week.

The lawsuit from Alere is “without merit,” an Abbott spokesperson said.

“Abbott is compliant with its obligations under the merger agreement and continues to work toward regulatory approvals, despite Alere’s nearly 6-month delay in filing its 2015 10-K (annual report),” Abbott said.

The acquisition has seen its share of hiccups along the way, including a rejected $50 million offer from Abbott to spike the merger and a securities fraud lawsuit accusing Alere of artificially inflating its share price ahead of announcing the merger.

Earlier this month Alere said it is confident the potential $6 billion merger will go through, despite concerns that it could fail.

“In response to the statements made by an Abbott spokesman yesterday, while Abbott is free to express concerns about anything it wants, it should not imply that Abbott has any basis to avoid closing the merger, as there is absolutely no basis whatsoever for Abbott to do so,” an Alere spokesperson said in a statement, according to Bloomberg.

Alere’s statement came in response to a comment from Abbott spokesperson Scott Stoffel after Alere posted its full year 2015 results earlier on Monday. Stoffel said that the filing “does not eliminate Abbott’s concerns about its business controls and practices, given the litany of issues that have come to light since our agreement was announced.”

Alere, which last month cut its outlook for the rest of the year amid a probe of accounting snafus in Africa and China, said in a press release that it found “immaterial errors” in its revenue recognition processes but revealed in a regulatory filing that there were “material weaknesses” in the way it recognized revenues and accounted for income taxes.

Material from Reuters was used in this report.

The post Alere files suit against Abbott to force $6B buyout appeared first on MassDevice.

from MassDevice http://ift.tt/2bE3N3t