New York (AFP)
Twitter will pay $ 809.5 million to shareholders of the group who accused the leaders of a false communication on the results of the social network in 2015, some having sold in the wake of the shares after the price increase.
The out-of-court settlement, announced in a document filed Monday with the US regulator of financial markets (SEC) and yet to be approved by a judge, ends the lawsuit brought in a federal court in Oakland (California) by these shareholders.
The deal will be subject to a one-time charge in the third quarter accounts, a big deal for a company that posted $ 1.19 billion in second quarter sales.
The market reacted badly to this announcement.
Around 10:45 GMT, the Twitter title lost 3.81% to 60.09 dollars.
The shareholders who had seized the federal justice accused the leaders of having presented a misleading picture of the state of the company during the publication of the 2014 annual results, in early February 2015.
Several members of the board of directors, including co-founder Jack Dorsey, then sold shares in the weeks that followed, at a price that shareholders considered "artificially inflated".
In total, according to the summons filed in November 2016, executives sold $ 281 million worth of shares before Twitter communicated again on its situation.
If Jack Dorsey sold $ 3.6 million worth of securities, another director of the San Francisco group, co-founder Evan Williams, sold him for $ 274 million.
The latter resigned his mandate as director in 2019.
In the following two publications, in April and July 2015, the group revised its forecasts downwards and reported a slower than expected increase in the number of its active users, which led to the fall in the price of the action.
Between the end of April and the end of July, that is to say after these two disappointing publications for the markets, the title lost 37%.
The amicable agreement puts an end to the lawsuits against Twitter but also against the executives involved who will not have to admit any offense or responsibility.
© 2021 AFP