Opinion ID: 779792
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Lucente's Purported Exercise of Stock Options

Text: 29 At this summary judgment intersection, the case took a bizarre turn. In his motion for reconsideration of the district court's summary judgment opinion, Lucente asserted for the first time that IBM's cancellation letter was just an anticipatory repudiation and that he had elected to ignore it while awaiting IBM's future performance under the Plans. (R. at 642). During oral argument on the reconsideration motion, counsel for IBM noted that the anticipatory repudiation theory was barred because Lucente had taken no action to exercise any of his options over the past eight years. Counsel further noted that it remained to be seen whether Lucente would take any action to exercise the remaining options that IBM had awarded to Lucente in January 1991, which were to expire two weeks' thereafter (the January 2001 options). (R. at 733). The district court then opined that if Lucente were her client, I would make damn sure that I could nail down my claim for two million dollars by tendering payment to IBM for Lucente's remaining stock options. (R. at 745). 30 Lucente apparently agreed, because a few days after oral argument he sent a check for $1,889,948.88 to Louis Gerstner, CEO of IBM, purporting to exercise his option to purchase 60,692 shares of IBM stock at $31.14 per share. 1 On January 23, 2001, IBM, through its counsel, rejected Lucente's purported exercise of these stock options and returned Lucente's check. 31