Opinion ID: 672055
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Microdyne Corporation

Text: 2 Defendant Microdyne Corporation is a computer hardware and software company headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia. The other two defendants are Philip T. Cunningham, the Chairman and President of Microdyne and the owner of about seventy percent of its total common stock, and Christopher M. Maginniss, the corporation's Chief Financial Officer. 3 In late 1991 Microdyne entered into an agreement with a major computer networking company for the joint development of a number of new networking products. The first two of those products were the NetWare Access Server by Microdyne (NAS) and the NetWare Asynchronous Communications Server by Microdyne (NACS). Beginning in March 1992, Microdyne would sell NAS (and later NACS) units to distributors who, in turn, would attempt to sell them to dealers and end users (customers). Central to the instant appeal are seven statements that Microdyne made in 1992. The plaintiffs-appellants have alleged that the statements were materially false or misleading and caused the market price of Microdyne common stock to be artificially inflated for nearly eight months in 1992, during which time the appellants and all members of the class they represent purchased such stock. 4