According to the Company’s FORM 10-Q for the quarterly period ended June 30, 2006, in June 2003, upon the determination of a special independent committee of the Company’s Board of Directors, the Company elected to participate in a proposed settlement with the plaintiffs in this litigation. If ultimately approved by the Court, this proposed settlement would result in the dismissal, with prejudice, of all claims in the litigation against the Company and against any of the other issuer defendants who elect to participate in the proposed settlement, together with the current or former officers and directors of participating issuers who were named as individual defendants. The proposed settlement does not provide for the resolution of any claims against the underwriter defendants, and the litigation against those defendants is continuing. The proposed settlement provides that the class members in the class action cases brought against the participating issuer defendants will be guaranteed a recovery of $1 billion by the participating issuer defendants. If recoveries totaling less than $1 billion are obtained by the class members from the underwriter defendants, the class members will be entitled to recover the difference between $1 billion and the aggregate amount of those recoveries from the participating issuer defendants. If recoveries totaling $1 billion or more are obtained by the class members from the underwriter defendants, however, the monetary obligations to the class members under the proposed settlement will be satisfied. In addition, the Company and any other participating issuer defendants will be required to assign to the class members certain claims that the Company may have against the underwriters of the Company’s initial public offerings. On September 1, 2005, the Court preliminarily approved the proposed settlement and directed that notice of the terms of the proposed settlement be provided to class members. Thereafter, the Court held a fairness hearing on April 24, 2006, at which objections to the proposed settlement were heard. After the fairness hearing, the Court took under advisement whether to grant final approval to the proposed settlement.


As summarized by the same SEC filing, during the period July 5, 2001 through July 27, 2001, the Company was named as a defendant in three shareholder class action lawsuits that were filed in federal court in New York City against the Company and certain of its former officers, current and former directors and the underwriters for its initial public offering. On April 19, 2002, the plaintiffs filed a single consolidated amended complaint that supersedes the individual complaints originally filed. Management understands that various other plaintiffs have filed substantially similar class action cases against approximately 300 other publicly-traded companies and their public offering underwriters in New York City, which have all been transferred, along with the case against the Company, to a single federal district judge for purposes of coordinated case management. On July 15, 2002, together with the other issuer defendants, the Company filed a collective motion to dismiss the consolidated, amended complaints against the issuers on various legal grounds common to all or most of the issuer defendants. The underwriters also filed separate motions to dismiss the claims against them. In addition, the parties have stipulated to the voluntary dismissal without prejudice of the Company’s individual former officers and current and former directors who were named as defendants in the Company’s litigation, and they are no longer parties to the litigation. On February 19, 2003, the Court issued its ruling on the motions to dismiss filed by the underwriter and issuer defendants. In that ruling the Court granted in part and denied in part those motions. As to the claims brought against the Company under the antifraud provisions of the securities laws, the Court dismissed all of these claims with prejudice, and refused to allow plaintiffs the opportunity to re-plead these claims. As to the claims brought under the registration provisions of the securities laws, which do not require that intent to defraud be pleaded, the Court denied the motion to dismiss these claims as to the Company and as to substantially all of the other issuer defendants as well. The Court also denied the underwriter defendants’ motion to dismiss in all respects.

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. The complaint further alleges that the Prospectus was materially false and misleading because it failed to disclose, among other things, that: (i) Morgan Stanley, Lehman, Robertson Stephens and Smith Barney had solicited and received excessive and undisclosed commissions from certain investors in exchange for which Morgan Stanley, Lehman, Robertson Stephens and Smith Barney allocated to those investors material portions of the restricted number of ON Semiconductor shares issued in connection with the ON Semiconductor IPO; and (ii) Morgan Stanley, Lehman, Robertson Stephens and Smith Barney had entered into agreements with customers whereby Morgan Stanley, Lehman, Robertson Stephens and Smith Barney agreed to allocate ON Semiconductor shares to those customers in the ON Semiconductor IPO in exchange for which the customers agreed to purchase additional ON Semiconductor shares in the aftermarket at pre-determined prices. As alleged in the complaint, the SEC is investigating underwriting practices in connection with several other initial public offerings.