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PetroChina Class Action Dismissed
On August 3, a federal district court in New York dismissed with prejudice a securities class action suit filed against Chinese oil and gas company PetroChina Co. Ltd. The suit alleged that statements in the company’s 2011 and 2012 financial statements claiming the company was in compliance with its internal rules and securities regulations were false or misleading. The plaintiffs filed the suit after the Chinese government announced that it was investigating four of the company’s top executives for corruption.
The court dismissed the complaint in its entirety, finding that the plaintiffs failed to allege any acts of bribery or corruption that predated the filing of the 2011 and 2012 financial statements. The court wrote: “[T]his Court is not requiring that Plaintiffs allege a detailed account of the particular illicit deals that PetroChina officials were allegedly engaged in. Plaintiffs are required, nonetheless, to establish—at a bare minimum—that the underlying fraud took place during the time period covered by the purportedly false public statements and that someone at PetroChina knew or had reason to know about it.”
Similar class action suits against Wal-Mart and Avon have also been dismissed in the past year.
Upcoming Events
- John R. Coleman to discuss “CFPB update” at the MBA Legal Issues and Regulatory Compliance Conference
- Kathryn L. Ryan to discuss "State licensing and NMLS challenges" at MBA’s Legal Issues and Regulatory Compliance Conference
- Jonice Gray Tucker to discuss “Fair lending and equal opportunity laws” at the MBA Legal Issues and Regulatory Compliance Conference
- Jeffrey P. Naimon to discuss “Contemplating the boundaries of UDAAP” at the MBA Legal Issues and Regulatory Compliance Conference
- Steven vonBerg to speak at closing “super session“ on compliance topics at MBA Legal Issues and Regulatory Compliance Conference
- Buckley Webcast: Fifth Circuit muddles CFPB’s plans to use in-house judges in enforcement proceedings
- Jeffrey P. Naimon to discuss “Understanding the ESG impact on compliance” at the ABA’s Regulatory Compliance Conference