In September, Hertz was furious that we listed it as one of 10 major companies headed for bankruptcy.
In fact, the car rental company was so mad that it sued Audit Integrity, the firm who did the bankruptcy analysis, for defamation.
Now, it's dropping the suit.
Crain's New York: Hertz Global Holdings Inc. has quietly laid down arms in its legal battle against a small research firm that had warned the car rental company could go bankrupt.
A spokesman said Monday that Hertz dropped its libel lawsuit against Audit Integrity Inc., which in September listed the nation's largest car rental company as one of several that faced “the greatest risk of bankruptcy” over the coming 12 months. The Hertz spokesman said the suit would have cost “a lot of time and money” and hence was “not worth pursuing now.”
Read the whole thing here.
This is obviously great news. Even if Audit Integrity's analysis was total nonsense, a libel judgment would have had a chilling effect against any analyst warning of a company's bankruptcy.
