On November 14, the official Wechat post of the lawyer Hao Junbo revealed thatBABA (NYSE:BABA)The securities fraud case has recently been taken to court by US stock investors.
AlibabaInvestors in US stocks initiate class action
According to the official account of Hao Junbo law firm, in the current lawsuit, investors accused BABA of making false statements about the company's business and operating conditions and development prospects between October 21, 2020 and November 3, 2020. the following significant adverse facts were not disclosed to investors:
(1)? Ant Group does not meet the listing requirements or does not fully disclose some important matters.
(2)? The coming major changes in the regulatory environment of financial technology will have a serious impact on Ant Group's business.
(3)? Therefore, the listing of Ant Group may be postponed.
(4)? Therefore, BABA's statement about its business and operation status and development prospects is seriously misleading and lacks the factual basis. When the truth is exposed, the fall in its share price hurts investors.
So far, BABA's US shares have been trading at US $260 per share.Total market capitalizationIt was $705.4 billion, down 17.75% from its peak on October 27th.
BABA once settled the class action lawsuit with 325 million US dollars.
It is reported that this is not the first time BABA has encountered a class action lawsuit from US stock investors.
BABA faced two class-action lawsuits in the US in 2015, just three months after the US stock market went public.
On January 31, 2015, BABA and senior management team Jack Ma, Cai Chongxin, Lu Zhaoxi and Wu Wei were subjected to a class action lawsuit.ChristineAsia and William Tai sued in Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York.
In October 2015, the plaintiff, represented by Gary Buelow, sued BABA in a California court.
The cause of these two lawsuits is that BABA did not disclose an administrative guidance work on the eve of listing in the listing prospectus.
It is reported that on January 28, 2015, the former State Administration for Industry and Commerce published an article entitled "White Paper on Administrative guidance to BABA Group" (hereinafter referred to as "White Paper").
According to the White Paper, on July 16, 2014, the administrative guidance working group of the former Network Supervision Department of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, together with the Zhejiang Provincial Bureau of Industry and Commerce and the Hangzhou Municipal Bureau of Industry and Commerce (Market Regulatory Administration), held an administrative guidance forum in the Zhejiang Provincial Bureau of Industry and Commerce. BABA Group is mainly responsible for personnel and core department management team to attend, receive administrative guidance. In order not to affect the progress of BABA's pre-listing work, the forum was held in an internal closed form.
Due to the internal nature of the administrative guidance forum, there was no relevant media report at that time, and BABA did not disclose it in the prospectus.
By the end of January 2015, after the meeting was made public in the form of a "white paper", it attracted wide attention in the US stock market.
The plaintiffs believed that BABA and his executives violated the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 by misstating or omitting important facts, which made them misleading at that time. BABA should disclose in the IPO prospectus his meeting with the former State Administration for Industry and Commerce and several regional local regulators in China in July 2014.
It is worth noting that Hao Junbo is also the attorney for this lawsuit.
The two lawsuits were not settled until the end of 2018 and April 2019, respectively.
On December 31, 2018, BABA issued a statement saying that BABA would pay 75 million US dollars to settle with the plaintiff over the class action brought by the plaintiff in California.
On April 29, 2019, BABA said that he would pay 250 million US dollars to settle with the plaintiff about the "class action" encountered by the Southern District Court of New York.
History repeats itself. How will BABA choose this time?