“Hewlett-Packard Co and top executives misled investors for months before unveiling a series of major decisions, such as the demise of the TouchPad, that hammered its shares, a shareholder alleged in a proposed class-action lawsuit filed this week,” Edwin Chan reports for Reuters.
“Shareholder Richard Gammel accuses the world’s largest technology company [sic] of concealing the fact that its existing business model was not working and that webOS — the operating software it inherited after buying Palm — was no longer central to its business model,” Chan reports. “The lawsuit, filed this week in U.S. District Court by Robbins Geller Rudman & Down, accuses HP executives including CEO Leo Apotheker and CFO Cathie Lesjak of misleading investors by making positive statements about the company’s performance that later proved unfounded.”
Chan reports, “The lawsuit seeks to recover unspecified damages on behalf of any who bought into HP between November 22, 2010, and Aug 18 of this year, arguing that the lack of disclosure about potential issues means its shares were artificially inflated.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: RIM execs should take heed.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz” and “Dan K.” for the heads up.]