HOUSTON (Legal Newsline) – A Massachusetts county’s pension system is suing Apache Corporation after losing part of its investment in the company.
Plymouth County Retirement System, through a group of securities class action lawyers, filed their case Feb. 23 in Houston federal court. Apache, an energy company in the natural gas business, misled investors about the state of the company, the lawsuit says.
Much like a recent case against ExxonMobil, Plymouth’s revolves around underwhelming results from the Permian Basin.
The lawsuit starts on April 23, 2019, when Apache announced a “temporary” deferral of natural gas production at Alpine High, leading to a $4 per share drop from a starting price of $37.09.
Months later, the company’s troubles continued when a senior vice president abruptly resigned. By Oct. 25, 2019, the stock was down to $23.23 per share.
In March 2020, after disclosing financial problems, the stock went all the way to $4.46 per share.
“Defendants failed to disclose to investors that the Company’s public statements about Alpine High were materially misleading and misrepresented material information,” the suit says.
“When the Defendants’ misrepresentations and fraudulent conduct were disclosed and became apparent to the market, the prices of Apache common stock fell precipitously as the artificial inflation came out of the Company’s stock price.
Signing the complaint was Thomas Ajamie of Ajamie LLP in Houston. Other firms working on the case are Kessler Topaz of Pennsylvania and Saxena White of New York.