16 janvier, 2008 11:58
What about the Fraud by
Dow Chemical, Corning, Inamed, Mentor, Baxter, etc.,_______________________________________
11th Circuit Upholds Coke Fraud Dismissal
Alyson M. Palmer
Fulton County Daily Report
01-16-2008
A panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the dismissal of a two-year-old securities fraud case against The Coca-Cola Co.
The 2005 class action complaint contended that then-Coke CEO Douglas Daft and other top executives made false and misleading statements about Coke's business and financial standing that artificially inflated the price of Coke stock.
U.S. District Judge Richard W. Story dismissed the suit in 2006, saying that most of the alleged misrepresentations were mere "puffery" -- vague, sunny statements on which reasonable investors don't rely -- while other allegations weren't stated specifically enough in the complaint.
The unpublished, unsigned opinion issued Jan. 10 by the panel of 11th Circuit Judges Stanley F. Birch Jr. and Ed Carnes and Senior 11th Circuit Judge Emmett Ripley Cox generally adopted the "well-reasoned" opinion written by Story. The panel paused only to clarify that one of Coke's arguments noted in the district court opinion -- about the plaintiffs' claim that Coke had violated accounting principles -- was too "fact-based" to support a motion to dismiss.
The winning argument at the 11th Circuit was made by veteran U.S. Supreme Court oralist Thomas C. Goldstein of the Washington, D.C., office of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. Joseph D. Daley of Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins in San Diego appeared for the plaintiffs, who also are represented by the Atlanta firm of Chitwood Harley Harnes.
The case, Selbst v. The Coca-Cola Co., No. 07-11738, involved investors who acquired Coke stock between Jan. 30, 2003, and Sept. 15, 2004.
Chitwood and Coughlin Stoia have another securities fraud case against Coke pending before Senior U.S. District Judge Willis B. Hunt Jr. That suit alleges that in the late 1990s the company engaged in "channel stuffing" by pressuring soft drink bottlers to buy excess concentrated Coke syrup.
