BlackBerry lawyers convinced a U.S. District Court in Manhattan today that it should dismiss a lawsuit accusing it of fraudulently inflating its stock price by portraying market acceptance of its BlackBerry 10 phones as better than it really was.
Judge Thomas Griesa said that the plaintiffs didn't prove that BlackBerry's top brass made material misrepresentations or omissions in an effort to pump the stock price and defraud investors.
Shareholder Marvin Pearlstein filed the original lawsuit in early October 2013.
The suit pointed to a BlackBerry statement saying that it was "progressing on its financial and operational commitments." BlackBerry also claimed that its BlackBerry 10 platform was being warmly received by app developers, the lawsuit said.
"In reality, the BlackBerry 10 was not well received by the market, and the company was forced to ... lay off approximately 4,500 employees, totaling approximately 40 percent of its total workforce," the complaint stated.
That may all be true, but plaintiffs needed to draw a clear line between fraudulent statements by BlackBerry management and the company's stock price, and they failed to do so.
Source: Reuters