* THURSDAY'S unauthorised press release purportedly from Smith &
Nephew was confirmed yesterday when the group said it had reached a
settlement of the suit brought against its US subsidiary, S&N Richards,
by an American company, Polteco.
The group is in the process of appealing against a $96m judgement in
Polteco's favour. Now the matter has been settled out of court at a cost
of $37.5m. After tax this will net down to a charge of #14m which will
be counted as an extraordinary item in the next accounts.
S&N contends that the orginal judgement against it was completely
unfounded and that there were reasonable prospects of the appeal
succeeding. But the board decided to settle because of the risks and
costs of legal action and the demands on management time. The settlement
will knock 1.4p from S&N's earnings per share which analysts were
projecting at 9p for 1991.
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