In February 2009, Pfizer decided to settle its legal case with the 200 plaintiffs. An out-of-court settlement was reached, and scheduled to be put in writing at a meeting in Rome, Italy in March 2009. The settlement followed months of negotiations between Pfizer and the Kano state government which represented the plaintiffs. According to Wikileaked US embassy cables, Pfizer's country manager admitted that "Pfizer had hired investigators to uncover corruption links to federal attorney general Michael Aondoakaa to expose him and put pressure on him to drop the federal cases".