NEWARK, NJ The Associated Press recently reported that two former executives pleaded innocent April 5 to charges that they falsely inflated the value of CUC, a Connecticut-based direct marketing company involved in the 1997 merger that created Cendant Corp. One of the defendants sought to have a new judge chosen for the case.
Cendant s disclosure three years ago of the accounting fraud led to a one-day, $14 billion stock meltdown, and triggered a huge class-action lawsuit by aggrieved shareholders. (4/5/01)