April 8 (Reuters)-A US judge has dismissed a lawsuit against Chinese search engine giant Baidu accusing Baidu of deceiving shareholders in its ability to comply with China's Internet content management regulations.

Judge Lucy Koh of the San Jose District of California rejected the claims in the lawsuit in a ruling made late Wednesday. The lawsuit found that 12 statements issued by Baidu between March 2019 and March 2020 were wrong and misleading and pushed up the company's share price.

These statements include the announcement that the company has "cleaned up" harmful or problematic content such as pornography, gambling and drugs. This has boosted user confidence and may have boosted Baidu's traffic and revenue.

Koh also found that there was no evidence that Baidu was deliberately fraudulent. Earlier, plaintiff Roger Ikeda claimed that Baidu executives concealed the company's compliance defects in order to evade punishment from the Chinese government.

Lawyers for Ikeda and Baidu didn't respond to requests for comment. (end)

* if you want to refer to the original report, please click and browse *

(compiled by Xu Wenyan; revised by Zhang Di)
((miranda.xu@tr.com; 86-10-56692082;)