PricewaterhouseCoopers will pay about $28 million to shareholders of Telxon Corp., finally putting an end to legislation concerning the high-tech manufacturer.
The settlement stems from a 2001 lawsuit brought against the accouting firm, which was Telxon's accountant before a buyout from parent company Symbol Technologies Inc. caused Telxon to change its auditor in 2000. Telxon blamed PwC for the financial irregularities that saddled the company with lawsuits and a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation.
Symbol, a maker of bar-code scanners, acquired Telxon in 2000, and sued PricewaterhouseCoopers a year later after it discovered that Telxon's audits from 1996 through 1999 did not meet the standards of generally accepted accounting principles. When Telxon later restated its financial results for those years, several shareholder class-action lawsuits were filed, charging Telxon with misleading investors.
In February 2004, Telxon received court approval from the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Ohio to pay $37 million to settle the class-action case. In August, Telxon settled a separate malpractice suit against the firm for $18 million.
