CABLE & WIRELESS yesterday emerged unscathed from a string of US class action lawsuits after a court dismissed all the complaints made against it.

The telecommunications group was also found not to have violated US securities laws, while a personal claim against Sir Ralph Robins, its former chairman, was also dismissed by the federal court in Virginia.

C&W had been accused of misleading shareholders because it failed to disclose a potential £1.5 billion tax liability and a further £1.3 billion of long-term lease commitments.

Executives revealed the existence of the liabilities on two separate occasions only late in 2002. As a result, the shares fell, and, for a short period, there were doubts about whether the group would survive.

The class action claim was brought on behalf of Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, which manages retirement funds for 334,000 past and present Canadian teachers.

The pension fund had claimed that C&W “misrepresented the amount of cash . . . available to it” and, secondly, that it was a counter party to improper exchanges of network capacity with Qwest and Global Crossing, its US rivals.

Separately, it emerged that C&W has lost out to a bid from Qatar Telecom and Denmark’s TDC in the battle for a second mobile phone licence in the Gulf state of Oman.

C&W shares rose 1p to 128½p.

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