According to the Company’s FORM 20-F for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2005, in June 2003, the plaintiffs in the consolidated IPO class action lawsuits currently pending against the Company and over 300 other issuers who went public between 1998 and 2000, announced a proposed settlement with the Company and the other issuer defendants. The proposed settlement provides that the insurers of all settling issuers will guarantee that the plaintiffs recover $1 billion from non-settling defendants, including the investment banks that acted as underwriters in those offerings. In the event that the plaintiffs do not recover $1 billion, the insurers for the settling issuers will make up the difference. Under the proposed settlement, the maximum amount that could be charged to the Company’s insurance policy in the event that the plaintiffs recovered nothing from the investment banks would be approximately $3.9 million. The Company believes that it has sufficient insurance coverage to cover the maximum amount that the Company may be responsible for under the proposed settlement. The independent members of the Company’s board of directors approved the proposed settlement at a meeting held in June 2003. As of March 2005, outside counsel advised that the court has granted preliminary approval of the settlement, subject to certain conditions.

The complaint alleges violations of Sections 11, 12(a)(2) and 15 of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 promulgated thereunder. On or about July 12, 1999 Chinadotcom commenced an initial public offering of 4,200,000 of its shares of common stock at an offering price of $20 per share (the ``Chinadotcom IPO''). In connection therewith, Chinadotcom filed a registration statement, which incorporated a prospectus (the ``Prospectus''), with the SEC. The complaint further alleges that the Prospectus was materially false and misleading because it failed to disclose, among other things, that: (i) the Underwriter Defendants (Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Robertson Stephens, and Merrill Lynch) had solicited and received excessive and undisclosed commissions from certain investors in exchange for which the Underwriter Defendants allocated to those investors material portions of the restricted number of Chinadotcom shares issued in connection with the Chinadotcom IPO; and (ii) the Underwriter Defendants had entered into agreements with customers whereby the Underwriter Defendants agreed to allocate Chinadotcom shares to those customers in the Chinadotcom IPO in exchange for which the customers agreed to purchase additional Chinadotcom shares in the aftermarket at pre-determined prices.