Mexico: Slim fights weighty award

Global Finance, Jul 2001 by Green, Paula

It's back to a Dallas court for Carlos Slim Helu, the Mexican billionaire business magnate whose purchase of CompUSA has entangled him in a cross-border legal battle that could cost him hundreds of millions of dollars. Slim is appealing a decision that orders him and his partners to pay huge damages for essentially hijacking CompUSA from a Texasbased group that had sought his help to enter the Mexican market.

Lawyers for both Slim and COC Services, the Texas firm that took Slim to court over his purchase of the giant US computer retailer early last year, are appealing a decision made by a Dallas judge in May.

COC Services, which had been set up in the late 1990s by a trio of Dallas businessmen to take CompUSA into Mexico, is unhappy that the judge released the computer retailer and its former chief executive officer, James Halpin, from their share of the multimillion-dollar fine, says Mark Werbner, a partner in the Dallas law firm representing COC

Slim contends he and his two Mexican conglomerates, Grupo Carso and Grupo Sanborns, shouldn't be liable for $121.5 million in actual and punitive damages, says Mark Josephs, Slim's Dallas attorney. In February a Dallas County jury ordered a $4545 million judgment against the five defendants.

COC contends that it had an exclusive agreement with Halpin to take CompUSA into the Mexican market.They knew they needed a Mexican partner and who better than Slim-whose vast holdings include Telefonos de Mexico (Telmex) and have made him one of the world's richest men.Yet after discussions with Slim, COC claims, the Mexican magnate went to Halpin and struck a deal to buy CompUSA that left COC out in the cold. -Paula Green