Lernout & Hauspie Announces Board Resignations, Further Management Changes.

IEPER, Belgium & BURLINGTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 23, 2000

Former Co-Managing Directors Hauspie and Willaert,

Former President/CEO Bastiaens, Resign from Board;

Head of Korean Operation Suspended

Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products NV (NASDAQ: LHSP, EASDAQ: LHSP) (`L&H' or `the Company'), a world leader in speech and language technology, products and services, today announced, effectively immediately, the resignations of three members of its Board of Directors: Mr. Pol Hauspie, former Co-Chair and Managing Director; Mr. Nico Willaert, former Managing Director; and Mr. Gaston Bastiaens, former CEO and President. The announcement was made by John Duerden, the Managing Director, President and CEO of L&H.

Duerden also announced the immediate suspension of Joo Chul (John) Seo as President and General Manager of L&H Korea and his removal as a director of L&H Korea, stating that Seo had been immediately relieved of all responsibilities.

"The decisions we have made represent the commitment of L&H's new management and Board team to a comprehensive remedial course of action. We will continue our effort to obtain all the facts and to restore integrity and reliability to our financial reporting system," Duerden said. "In particular, we are committed to working closely with our outside auditor, KPMG, to restore their trust through an unwavering policy of transparency, candor, and cooperation with them."

Duerden continued: "Our new team is anxious to resolve these recent controversies affecting the Company's financial statements so we can continue to maintain and extend our leadership position in the emerging speech and language technology markets."

The decisions were made by the Board after it unanimously accepted all of the recommendations of the Company's Audit Committee.

Duerden said that Dong-Hee (Daan) Kim, formerly a vice-president with the Enterprise & Telephony Solutions Division, has been appointed Acting President and General Manager of L&H Korea.

Kim comes to L&H with strong experience in international business. He has worked for several multinationals - most recently as President of LG Information and Communications' GSM unit, building up a GSM business. He also spent five years in Brussels as Director of the LG Brussels office where he initiated and constructed a strategic alliance relationship between Philips and LG.

"I too am committed to a policy of full and complete transparency and co-operation, and will continue to work with the KPMG auditors," said Mr Kim. "Customers in Korea can be assured of our continued commitment and support."

John Duerden continued, "I have every confidence that Daan Kim will provide the leadership needed to steer L&H Korea into its next stage."

The Company's independent auditor, KPMG Bedrijfsrevisoren, has previously notified the Company that, as a result of the identified irregularities and resulting decision by the Company to restate its financial statements for 1998 and 1999, the auditor has determined that it can no longer be associated with the Company's financial statements for 1998 and 1999 and that, therefore, its auditor's reports relating to each of the Company's financial statements for 1998 and 1999 should no longer be relied upon. In the course of its investigations, the Audit Committee of the Board of Directors has identified facts which may have been concealed from its auditor.

About Lernout & Hauspie

Lernout & Hauspie (L&H) is a global leader in advanced speech and language solutions for vertical markets, computers, automobiles, telecommunications, embedded products, consumer goods and the Internet. The company is making the speech user interface (SUI) the keystone of simple, convenient interaction between humans and technology, and is using advanced translation technology to break down language barriers. The company provides a wide range of offerings, including: customized solutions for corporations; core speech technologies marketed to OEMs; end user and retail applications for continuous speech products in horizontal and vertical markets; and document creation, human and machine translation services, Internet translation offerings, and linguistic tools. L&H's products and services originate in four basic areas: automatic speech recognition (ASR), text-to-speech (TTS), digital speech and music compression (SMC) and text-to-text (translation).

For more information, please visit Lernout & Hauspie on the World Wide Web at www.lhsl.com.

This Press Release contains forward-looking information that involves risks and uncertainties, including statements about the company's plans, objectives, expectations and intentions. Readers are cautioned that forward looking statements include known and unknown risks, including uncertainty of new product development, the risk that newly introduced products may contain undetected errors or defects or otherwise not perform as anticipated, early state of development of the speech, language and medical information technology markets, the ability of L&H's customers to successfully integrate and commercialise L&H's technology, the company's ability to successfully integrate the operations of Dictaphone and Dragon, the retention of key technical and other personnel, risks associated with the financial leverage associated with the company's assumption and/or repayment of Dictaphone indebtedness, currency and other risks related to international operations, rapid technological change and intense competition, as well as other risks set forth in L&H's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The forward-looking statements contained herein speak only as of the date of this Press Release.

L&H is a trademark of Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products N.V. in the United States and/or other countries. All other product names or trademarks referenced herein are trademarks of their respective owners.