RIM Bid for Certicom Blocked by Court

Last month security firm Certicom manned the legal guns against RIM’s takeover bid valued at $1.50 per share, and has apparently seen some success. Based on a court order, Certicom shareholders will not be able to take up RIM on their offer, and even if another separate bidding process is opened, RIM needs Certicom’s written consent to participate. That sounds like some pretty final closure on this legal spat, but I wonder if it will sour future dealings between the two Ontario-based companies. Certicom has provided some heavy-duty cryptographic technology for BlackBerrys, and if they were to hold out on future products and offer them to another business partner first, like Motorola (NYSE: MOT), then the whole takeover thing would have backfired embarassingly in RIM’s face. Still, RIM remains resolute to find alternative paths including appeals, so the fight may not be quite over yet.

[via MarketWire]