26th March - Corporate raider Carl Icahn filed suit against Motorola on Monday, seeking access to board documents as he cranks up pressure on the troubled vendor.

Icahn filed a lawsuit in the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware seeking an order requiring Motorola to make certain materials available for inspection.

These documents include board and committee minutes relating to the selection of Motorola's senior officers; the prospects of the Mobile Devices business and the realignment of its business, including the potential spinoff of the handset unit; documents that contemplated improvements or changes in the Mobile Device business that have not materialised; and documents showing the use of Motorola's aircraft and other property by members of senior management, the board of directors and their families, including the use of the aircraft for personal reasons.

The legal assault is part of Icahn's strategy to get a number of his own people elected to the Motorola board, after failing to get himself a seat last year.

On Monday, Icahn issued a letter urging stockholders to elect Frank Biondi, William Hambrecht, Lionel Kimerling and Keith Meister as directors of Motorola at the 2008 annual meeting next month.

"Over the past 12 months the statements and predictions of Motorola's management and the Board about Mobile Devices business have too often proven to be wrong. We want to ascertain what the Board could have done in the exercise of its fiduciary duty to assure Motorola stockholders that Motorola's statements and predictions were not incorrect and would not provide Motorola stockholders with an inaccurate perspective on the prospects for the Mobile Devices business," Icahn said.