In Reply to: Re: US Pension News - Potential $6b hit on IBM posted by Freddy on 19 February 2004 at 20:05:21:
After the news, the IBM share price dropped by one percent. That suggests there are players who don't think IBM will win its appeal, and don't think IBM will successfully lobby for retrospective legislation to get it off the hook.
No doubt creative accountancy will have a part to play (just up the predicted future rate of return from the fund's assets and then more paying out does not actuarily require more paid into the fund) but unless things change IBM owes the class that won the action real money.
(Not with trustee hat on)