Merrill Lynch Wins Dismissal of Fraud Suit

Merrill Lynch & Co. won dismissal of a suit accusing it of defrauding investors by inflating the value of Tyco International Ltd. stock.

U.S. District Judge Milton Pollack in New York City on Wednesday threw out the suit accusing the brokerage of issuing biased analyst reports.

The investors “failed to assert any causal relationship between the fraud alleged and the decline in the trading price of Tyco’s securities,” said Pollack. Tyco shares plunged in 2002 amid allegations of accounting misdeeds.