OMX executives have complained to the Swedish Bar Association about a legal adviser representing Borse Dubai in its $4 billion bid to purchase the exchange owner, a Swedish law firm said on Friday.
A letter, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters, was sent from OMX Chief Executive Magnus Bocker and Jukka Ruuska, president of Nordic exchanges at the company, according to Stockholm-based law firm Lindahl.
The letter complains that a legal adviser working for Lindahl, Mats Beckman, should not be involved in Borse Dubai’s bid, because he had worked for OMX and his employment contract had ended only recently on June 15.
That was less than two months before Borse Dubai announced it was building a stake in OMX and subsequently unveiled a full takeover offer.
The OMX letter said Beckman’s involvement in the case was unsuitable and was not in line with best practice in the legal profession.
Lindahl said it was not concerned about a possible investigation by the Bar Association. “We feel very comfortable about it,” Managing Partner Eva-Maj Muhlenbock told Reuters.
The Swedish Bar Association declined to comment.
Neither Bocker nor Ruuska is a member of the OMX board of directors listed on the firm’s Web site.
Any decision about how to view a takeover offer is typically up to a company’s board of directors.
OMX said it was normal for management to become involved in matters involving confidential company information.
“We cannot comment on specific cases, but generally we look very seriously on the matter of how employees and former employees handle information about the company,” an OMX spokesman said.
“That is a matter for the management, not for the board,” he added.
The company has said in the past it is studying the Borse Dubai offer and its board has sent questions to the firm.
Borse Dubai Chief Executive Per Larsson had previously run OMX and left the firm in 2003 after Bocker was given the top job following a merger with the Helsinki exchange.
Borse Dubai is the holding company for Dubai Financial Market (DFM) and Dubai International Financial Exchange (DIFX). It announced an all-cash bid of 230 crowns per share on Aug. 17, after it said it had begun acquiring OMX shares on Aug. 9.
Its offer topped an agreed cash-and-shares bid from U.S. exchange Nasdaq, currently valued at 204 crowns per share or $3.7 billion. The Nasdaq offer was announced on May 25.
OMX owns exchanges in the Nordic and Baltic region.
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