On Friday, BlackBerry Ltd had been sued by one of its shareholders for providing false account of the business growth of its Blackberry 10 smartphone line.
According to a lawsuit by shareholder Marvin Pearlstein filed in a federal court in Manhattan, Blackberry misled its investors by saying that the company is doing well in its finances and operations. Pearlstein also said Blackberry had made false claims over developer reviews of BlackBerry 10 platform preview. The complaint read, "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." It named Chief Executive Thorsten Heins and Chief Financial Officer Brian Bidulka as additional defendants aside from the company.
In the lawsuit, Pearlstein would like to represent a class of shareholders in the thousands who had purchased company stock from September 27 of last year to September 20 this year. Pearlstein indicated the timeframe as Blackberry's timeline at its peak financial position to its downfall, when it wrote down up to USD960 million in relation to Blackberry 10 units that remained unsold.
A Blackberry spokeswoman refused to comment about the lawsuit.
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