Porsche 2010 Annual Report Download - page 115

Overall statement on the risks
faced by the Porsche SE group
The overall risk exposure of the Porsche SE
group is made up of the individual risks relating to
the significant investments held in Porsche Zwi-
schenholding GmbH and Volkswagen AG presented
above and the specific risks of Porsche SE. The
risk management system ensures that these risks
can be controlled. Based on of the information
currently available to us, the executive board has
not identified any risks which could endanger the
ability of the Porsche SE group to continue as a
going concern.
Subsequent events
In January 2011, all plaintiffs appealed against
the dismissal by the United States District Court for the
Southern District of New York of actions for damages
against Porsche SE.
In January 2011, a private investor filed a claim
for damages against Porsche SE and another defendant
in the amount of approximately 3 million euro. The
plaintiff claims to have entered into options relating to
shares in Volkswagen AG in 2008 on the basis of inac-
curate information and the omission of information as
well as market manipulation by Porsche SE and to have
incurred losses from these options due to the share
price development in 2008 in the amounts claimed. The
action is currently pending in the Regional Court of
Stuttgart. Porsche SE considers the asserted claims to
be without merit and will defend itself against the claims.
On 18 February 2011, three plaintiffs filed an
action for damages in New York state court. In their
complaint, which has not yet been served on Porsche
SE, they allege common law fraud and unjust enrich-
ment based on allegations similar to those made in the
US claims set out above. The plaintiffs claim to have
lost at least 390 million US dollars. Porsche SE believes
this claim to be legally insufficient and without merit.
In addition, the Stuttgart public prosecutor
announced on 22 February 2011 that the investiga-
tions against the former members of the executive
board Dr. Wendelin Wiedeking and Holger P. Härter in
connection with allegations of manipulating the mar-
ket in Volkswagen shares were taking longer than
planned. They are not expected to be concluded
before the start of 2012. In addition, the public
prosecutor is investigating the two former members
of the executive board in connection with allegations
of breach of fiduciary duty to the detriment of Por-
sche SE. According to the public prosecutor, there is
reason to suspect that the two former members of
the executive board may have taken risks jeopardizing
the company’s ability to continue as a going concern
by entering into share price hedging transactions in
the course of acquiring the shareholding in Volks-
wagen AG. According to the public prosecutor, the
investigations on suspicion of trading-based (not
information-based) market manipulation have been
dropped.
For further details of the status of the legal
proceedings, please see the section “Litigation risk”
in the risk report of Porsche SE in this management
report.
Moreover, the section “Anticipated develop-
ment of the Porsche SE group” in the section “Fore-
cast report and outlook” of this management report
contains further statements on events that occurred
after the close of the short fiscal year 2010.
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