U.S. Supreme Court denies bid by Cisco's cofounders to overturn $19.5 million punitive damage award

Cisco's 20th anniversary celebration as a public company appears to be turning out a bust for Cisco's co-founders, Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner.

This month, Cisco is celebrating its 20th anniversary as a public company. However simultaneously, Cisco co-founders Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner are being forced to payout millions in an arbitration panel’s award to David C. Soward, following an angry, bitter, lengthy and very quarrelsome business dispute between the 3 former business partners.

Below, you can see that on February 22nd of this week, the U.S. Supreme Court turned away an appeal made by Bosack and Lerner, leaving intact a lower court ruling that upheld an arbitration panel’s award to Soward:

The arbitration panel concluded (see PDF page 6) that Soward was entitled to punitive damages of $10,999,494 against Bosack, and $8,555,162 against Lerner, ruling they had "acted with malice and oppression" in withholding Soward’s share of partnership assets.

Related story:

The New York Times - View interior photos of Sandy Lerner's rustic cabin

What's your take, why do you think Len and Sandy get into these difficult business scrapes?

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• Cisco
• LANs / WANs
• Co-founders of Cisco
• David C. Soward
• Len Bosack
• Sandy Lerner