When Kirk Kerkorian steps into the witness box this week, the billionaire casino magnate will make an extraordinary claim: Daimler-Benz, Germany's oldest car maker, tricked him into selling his stake in Chrysler, one of the biggest names in US automobile making, on the cheap.
He is seeking $1.2bn in damages, with a possibility of $3bn in punitive damages. For the industry observers who will crowd the courtroom in Wilmington, Delaware, for the next two weeks, the money is almost an aside. The real drama is the showdown between Mr Kerkorian and Jürgen Schrempp, chief executive of what is now DaimlerChrysler. Mr Schrempp is being sued by Mr Kerkorian, alongside DaimlerChrysler and Manfred Gentz, its finance director. He is not due in court until next week, but his lawyers are already on the attack.
They have accused Mr Kerkorian of selling more than $700m of shares in the merged DaimlerChrysler after being given documents showing cash flow was about to drop significantly. They claim crucial documents were destroyed by Mr Kerkorian's personal assistant at Tracinda, his investment company, before he sued.
Perhaps most damaging, they argue that Mr Kerkorian was so desperate to sell his 13.7 per cent holding in Chrysler that he urged Bob Eaton, then Chrysler CEO, not to argue for too high a price for fear the deal would fall through.
Mr Kerkorian is not short of ammunition. Not surprisingly, for a case involving the politically sensitive motor industry, his lawyers are emphasising the "German takeover" in their attempt to prove that Daimler-Benz bought Chrysler, rather than merging with it.
After the deal was completed, Mr Schrempp attempted to smooth over concerns about a German carmaker buying the US No 3, with a concerted push to create an international company. American thanksgiving turkey was served in the headquarters in Stuttgart, while Chrysler's canteens in Michigan served schnitzel and strudel. The German-style supervisory and management boards were split equally between Germans and Americans.
An expensive hearts-and-minds advertising campaign was launched, aimed at workers and shareholders. The slogan was: "Expect the extraordinary". Five years later, the extraordinary happened. Chrysler is run by Dieter Zetsche, a German, and has been relegated from equal partner to a division, struggling to recoup heavy losses.
All but one of the Americans have gone from the management board that runs the group day-to-day. Mr Eaton has also gone, leaving Mr Schrempp in sole charge.
Terry Christensen, Mr Kerkorian's lawyer, says it was only after an interview with Mr Schrempp in the Financial Times in October 2000 that Mr Kerkorian realised that DaimlerChrysler had been created by a takeover, not a merger. In the interview, Mr Schrempp admitted he always planned to relegate Chrysler to a division.
Mr Kerkorian now wants compensation for the takeover premium he claims he would have got, had the deal not been disguised as a "merger of equals".
Daimler flatly denies all the claims. It argues Mr Kerkorian brought the case only because Daimler refused to buy back shares. The company also says the supervisory board, which appoints the management, remains equally split between Americans and Germans. It argues the deal was a merger, not a takeover.
However, in attempts to get the case dismissed it said that even if the deal was a takeover, Mr Kerkorian should have known, since every leading newspaper dismissed the talk of a merger at the time of the deal.
Whatever the outcome of the trial, Mr Schrempp's 90-word quote in the FT in 2000 has been expensive. The company paid out $300 million in a parallel case this summer, but refused to accept liability. The ongoing problems at Chrysler, quality difficulties at Mercedes, the luxury operations at the heart of the group, and renewed difficulties at Mitsubishi, the Japanese affiliate, meant the world's biggest industrial combination was already undergoing trial by media. Now it must face a court.
- Financial Times Service