Corning settles lawsuit, Thermo Vision makes buys
Optical Coating Laboratory Inc. (OCLI; Santa Rosa, CA) has settled a lawsuit with Corning Incorporated (Corning, NY) over Optical Corporation of America (OCA; Marlborough, MA). OCLI had agreed to acquire OCA in 1996, but the merger fell apart, and the companies sued each other. Corning, meanwhile, bought OCA in 1997 for approximately $70 million. Under the January settlement, OCLI will receive about $3 million in cash, plus another $1 million in business value over three years through discounts on products or purchase of products from OCLI.
In February, Corning agreed to sell the optical-filter portion of the OCA business to Thermo Vision Corp. (Franklin, MA) for an undisclosed sum. Corning will keep the telecommunications portion of OCA. Thermo Vision, a division of Thermo Electron (Waltham, MA), also bought optical-component manufacturer Opticon Corp. (Billerica, MA) for $2.5 million in February.