By Dianne Solis, February 9, 2001

A Dallas District Court jury on Thursday ordered CompUSA Inc., its former CEO and Carlos Slim Helu, Latin America's richest man, to pay $454.5 million in damages to COC Services Ltd. of Dallas for breach of contract.

The jury of nine women and three men found that the defendants conspired to derail COC's plans to open CompUSA stores in Mexico. It awarded $90 million in actual damages and $364.5 million in punitive damages.

The jury said the $90 million should be paid jointly by all the defendants. And it specified that punitive damages should be roughly divided between James Halpin, ex-CEO of CompUSA, and Mr. Slim and his companies, which include Grupo Sanborns SA, Grupo Carso SA and CompUSA.

"One thing about Mr. Slim is he controls a lot of things in Mexico, and the way he does things in Mexico is the way he tries to do them in the United States," said COC president Lawrence McBride, who formed the company to distribute CompUSA products internationally. "You can't do business in Dallas that way."

The defendants' attorney, Mark Josephs, declined to comment.

But in a statement later, Lisa LeMaster, a spokeswoman for the defendants, expressed disappointment at the verdict.

"We will fight this verdict with every avenue available, including seeking a new trial," Ms. LeMaster said. "This verdict is totally contrary to the evidence presented at trial."

"CompUSA and its owners will prove they conduct business fairly and legally," she said. "We will take as long as it takes to prove that."

In the civil suit, filed in the state's 116th District Court, COC accused Mr. Slim, Mr. Halpin and the company of interfering with the firm's proposal to open CompUSA stores in Mexico. It also accused Mr. Slim and his companies of feigning interest in the deal to gain confidential information about CompUSA that later aided in their 1999 investment in the company.

By 2000, Mr. Slim and his companies had full control of CompUSA, which then became private.

Mr. Slim, who testified during the trial, and his attorneys had said that COC Services just wasn't equipped to handle such a deal and that it was too risky a venture.

Lawyers for Mr. Slim and CompUSA had said that COC Services never had a deal to open stores in Mexico, only an agreement to consider such a plan if COC Services came up with an investor.

Mr. Slim, a Mexican entrepreneur who built his fortune largely by buying distressed properties in Mexico, is most famous for his investment in Telfonos de Mxico SA, or Telmex, when it was reprivatized in the 1990s. In recent years, he has made a string of U.S. investments, including in the then-ailing, publicly traded CompUSA of Dallas.

Last November, the U.S. government said it would ask the World Trade Organization to settle a dispute over Mexico's telecommunications industry in an effort to ensure fair competition for U.S. companies in that country's long-distance market. The companies are trying to shake the iron grip of Telmex on much of Mexico's $12 billion telecommunications industry.

Anne Benningfield, a high school French teacher who served as jury forewoman, said that "ethics prevailed" in the jury's decision.

She added that she thought it was odd that so many women were on the jury. "Maybe they thought we wouldn't have a business sense or we would be compassionate," she said.

Mrs. Benningfield described the jury as a tight-knit group who got along surprisingly well during a three-week trial in a sixth-floor courtroom that grew so stuffy they took to fanning themselves even as temperatures outside were in the 40s.

The jury "stuck to the evidence" in making its decision, she said.

Mark Werbner, attorney for the plaintiffs, said of the defendants: "I think they definitely underestimated the power of the jury to sort through a complex international business matter. I think the jury was very upset at the way CompUSA was purchased."

Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange, Telmex's American depositary receipts dropped 5 cents to close at $32.66.

On the Mexican Bolsa, Mr. Slim's companies slid on the decision.

Grupo Sanborns, which controls Mr. Slim's stake in CompUSA, fell 6.3 percent to 13.6 pesos, or about $1.41, per share in Thursday trading.

Grupo Carso lost 7.6 percent to close at 15.6 pesos per share.

Staff writer Brendan Case contributed to this report.