Porsche hails ruling to reject VW bylaw change bid

FRANKFURT, Sept 29 (Reuters) - Porsche (PSHG_p.DE) on Monday welcomed a German court ruling that rejected Volkswagen AG's (VOWG.DE) petition to retain the state of Lower Saxony's blocking minority at VW general meetings.

VW had sought court approval to change the company's statutes -- normally the final stage for such revisions -- but the Braunschweig registry court rejected this on Friday, saying only a general meeting by shareholders could change the bylaws.

VW's supervisory board had decided on Sept. 12 to seek the change over the objections of Porsche, which raised its stake in Europe's biggest carmaker VW to 35.14 percent in mid-September.

Lower Saxony had proposed deleting two clauses in VW's bylaws that give the state and the federal government rights to send representatives to the board and that prevented VW shareholders from exercising more than 20 percent of voting rights.

But Lower Saxony's motion left unchanged a third bylaw that protects its own 20 percent blocking minority vote at shareholder meetings.

Porsche and Lower Saxony clashed at VW's last general meeting in April over the third clause, with the luxury carmaker seeking to scrap it.

That general meeting failed to change the bylaws and the two shareholders have gone to a district court in Hanover to resolve this issue.Porsche said the first hearing at Hanover District Court was scheduled for Nov. 6. (Marilyn.Gerlach@thomsonreuters.com, Reuters Messaging: marily.gerlach.reuters.com@reuters.net; +49 69 7565 1279))