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Bernstein Liebhard LLP Announces That Approximately One Month Remains to Make a Motion for Lead Plaintiff in a Class Action Against Apple Inc.
Globe Newswire 15-May-2019 5:09 PM
NEW YORK, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Bernstein Liebhard LLP announced today that approximately one month remains to make a motion for lead plaintiff in a class action pending in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California on behalf of all persons or entities (the "Class") who purchased the common stock of Apple Inc. ("Apple" or the "Company") (NASDAQ:AAPL) during the period between November 2, 2018 and January 2, 2019 (the "Class Period"). The complaint alleges that defendants violated Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. If you wish to serve as lead plaintiff in the Apple class action, you must move the court no later than June 17, 2019. A lead plaintiff is a representative party acting on behalf of other class members in directing the litigation. Your ability to share in any recovery does not require that you serve as lead plaintiff. If you take no action, you may remain an absent class member.
Apple designs, develops, and sells consumer electronics, consumer software, and online services. The Company's most well-known products include the iPad tablet, the Mac personal computer, and the iPhone smartphone. The iPhone was responsible for generating nearly two-thirds of Apple's revenue in 2018.
The complaint alleges that during the Class Period, defendants made materially false and misleading statements and/or failed to disclose adverse information regarding Apple's business and prospects. Specifically, defendants failed to disclose that: (a) the U.S.-China trade war had negatively impacted demand for iPhones and Apple's pricing power in greater China; (b) due to Apple discounting the cost of replacement batteries to make up for the Company's prior conduct of intentionally degrading the performance of the batteries in older iPhones, the rate at which Apple customers were replacing their batteries in older iPhones, rather than purchasing new iPhones, was negatively impacting Apple's iPhone sales growth; (c) as a result of slowing demand, Apple had slashed production orders from suppliers for the new 2018 iPhone models and cut prices to reduce inventory; and (d) defendants' decision to withhold unit sales for iPhones and other hardware, which was a metric relevant to investors and their view of the Company's financial performance, was designed to and would mask declines in unit sales of the iPhone. As a result defendants' failure to disclose this information, the price of Apple stock was artificially inflated during the Class Period.
On January 2, 2019, after the close of trading, Apple disclosed that first quarter fiscal 2019 revenues would be $84 billion - approximately $5 billion below the low-end of the forecasted range that the Company had announced just eight weeks earlier on November 1, 2018, due to falling iPhone sales in China. China is Apple's third-largest market for iPhones behind only the United States and Europe. The Company also admitted that price cuts to replacement batteries, stemming from the Company's prior conduct of intentionally reducing the performance of batteries in older iPhones, was negatively impacting iPhone sales growth.
On this news, Apple common stock fell more than $15 per share, or over 9%, to close at $142.19 per share on January 3, 2019.
Since 1993, Bernstein Liebhard LLP has recovered over $3.5 billion for its clients. In addition to representing individual investors, the Firm has been retained by some of the largest public and private pension funds in the country to monitor their assets and pursue litigation on their behalf. As a result of its success litigating hundreds of lawsuits and class actions, the Firm has been named to The National Law Journal's "Plaintiffs' Hot List" thirteen times and listed in The Legal 500 for ten consecutive years.
You can obtain a copy of the complaint from the clerk of the court for the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.
