Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Judge Keeps Tire Company Action Rolling

Well, now that the Bridgestone securities class action is back from the Sixth Circuit, it has Judge Robert L. Echols (M.D. Tenn.) pondering some loss causation issues. You see, the complaint was drafted back in 2001, long before Dura, so it “alleges similarly to Dura:" Blah, blah, blah. Oh, sorry, it alleges that "class members were damaged in reliance on the integrity of the market" because "they paid artificially inflated prices for Bridgestone's stock and ADRs."

Uh-oh, right? Well, no, because “even so, Plaintiff alleges elsewhere in the Consolidated Complaint that the value of Bridgestone shares dropped significantly in September 2000, shortly after she bought one ADR, as a direct result of additional negative information about Bridgestone and Firestone that made its way into the marketplace.”

So, “this distinguishes Plaintiff's case from Dura” “because Plaintiff does allege that Bridgestone's share price fell in September 2000 as the true severity of problems with ATX tires surfaced and Plaintiff does connect the alleged fraud with the ultimate disclosure and loss.”

You can read In re Bridgestone, issued May 3, 2006, at 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 28745.

Nugget: “Here, Plaintiff has alleged the share price drop and tied it directly to the market's acknowledgment of Bridgestone's and Firestone's prior alleged misrepresentations.”

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