CHICAGO Bank One Corp.s $45 million offer to settle a shareholder class action is the second such hit the bank has taken recently in connection with its First USA card unit.
In December the company agreed to pay $40 million to settle a class action over card fee policies. The more recent settlement offer, which came to light recently in a letter to Bank One shareholders and must still be approved by a judge, was made in response to a lawsuit filed in December 1999 that charged some former officers and directors of Bank One and First USA with making false and misleading statements about financial performance statements that artificially inflated the stock price, the lawsuit further charges.
If approved at a June 1 hearing, the settlement offer will be paid to shareholders who bought Bank One shares between Oct. 22, 1998, and Nov. 10, 1999. About 396 million shares were purchased in that period, according to the plaintiffs. The proposed settlement will come to 11 cents per share before the deduction of attorneys fees and expenses. In their suit, the plaintiffs had asked for $148 million, or 37 cents a share.
Oct. 22, 1998, was the date of the first earnings report and telephone briefing for analysts after the merger of Bank One and First Chicago NBD. John McCoy, who was chief executive officer of Bank One at the time, conducted the proceedings.
Nov. 10, 1999, was the date of a second earnings warning released by Bank One as its financial performance suffered.
The class action, which alleges that the companys financial statements did not comply with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, grew out of a lawsuit first filed Dec. 14, 1999, in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. In January and February 2000, a number of similar complaints were also filed in the court, each seeking class action status. On Feb. 18, 2000, the court consolidated the cases.
Bank One and First USA filed a joint motion to dismiss the complaint, which was denied. In its offer to settle, Bank One denied the allegations of the complaint and did not acknowledge fault, wrongdoing, or liability.
Bank One Corp. spokesman Tom Kelly said the proposed settlement would have no impact on earnings. He declined to comment on the litigation. 
