EXCERPT:
How High-Tech Dream Shattered in Scandal at Lernout & Hauspie
By Mark Maremont, Jesse Eisinger and John Carreyrou
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNALDecember 7, 2000
John Duerden wanted his $100 million, and he wanted it now.The chief executive officer of Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products NV had come to South Korea to solve a mystery: why his Korean lieutenants refused to release $100 million in cash they had on their books. Amid a deepening accounting scandal, Lernout & Hauspie, a leading maker of speech-recognition software, desperately needed the funds to stave off bankruptcy.
Arriving at the Seoul office of L&H Korea on Nov. 17, he was kept waiting for an hour before being ushered into a room with a visibly nervous Joo Chul Seo, head of the subsidiary. Mr. Duerden began grilling him about the cash. "Suddenly," Mr. Duerden recalls, "the door was kicked open with a terrific crash and three guys ran into the room, shouting and gesticulating."
The CEO watched in shock as the men dragged Mr. Seo out of the room and into an adjoining office, from where loud shouts and bangs were heard. "I thought the guy was getting beaten up," Mr. Duerden says. After urging employees to call the police, he left the building and high-tailed it out of the country.
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