Sound card and multimedia hardware vendor Creative Technology Ltd. will acquire substantially all the assets of audio card company Aureal Semiconductor Inc., which applied for relief under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code in April, Creative said in a statement Friday.
Creative will pay US$28 million in cash, plus two new shares of Creative stock for every 100 outstanding shares of Aureal stock, worth a total of approximately $4.35 million.
The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of California, Oakland Division, approved the sale.
The assets Creative is taking over include patents, trademarks and other intellectual property. The deal also includes settlement of all outstanding litigation claims between Aureal and Creative, according to the statement.
Creative and Aureal had been involved in litigation since February 1998, with both sides alleging patent violations by the other regarding audio processing hardware.
Aureal is the new name adopted by Media Vision Technology Inc., which is alleged to have defrauded investors out of tens of millions of dollars in the early 1990s in one of Silicon Valley’s biggest corporate scandals.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed lawsuits against four top Media Vision executives in 1998, accusing them of fraud and insider trading.
Last month, former Media Vision CEO Paul Jain pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges.
Creative Technology, in Singapore, can be contacted at http://www.ctlsg.creaf.com/.
