Yahoo Expects To Pay Nothing In Its Mexico Lawsuit
A former business partner, Worldwide Directories, sued Yahoo for breaking off a telephone-directories project that had started in Mexico but was set to expand internationally. A Mexican district court awarded it $2.7 billion in damages, based largely on the prospects of overseas expansions.
That's a substantial amount of Yahoo's cash, which it hopes to use to return money to shareholders and buy startups.
Yahoo's appealing the lawsuit, as the company has said before, and it expects to prevail.
Carlos Bazan-Canabal, the cofounder of Worldwide Directories, has said he doesn't plan to settle, and told Business Insider that final damages could exceed the initial $2.7 billion figure.
Goldman said Yahoo "made no accrual" in the fourth quarter for expected settlement or judgment expenses. In other words, as far as Wall Street is concerned, Yahoo expects to pay nothing.
Yahoo's top lawyer in Mexico just quit to join Google, by the way.