NEW YORK (Legal Newsline) - Public pension funds that accused AstraZeneca of misleading investors about the efficacy of the company’s Covid 19 in order to facilitate a stock-funded acquisition failed to identify any false statements or a motive for committing fraud, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled, upholding the dismissal of the case.
The Wayne and Monroe County pension systems, who have previously served as lead plaintiffs in shareholder litigation, claimed AstraZeneca executives committed fraud when explaining the results of clinical trials of their recombinant adenovirus vaccine candidate.
In a series of claims the Second Circuit described as “form paragraphs,” lawyers for the pension funds said the clinical trial information failed to disclose “adverse facts” including that there were no patients over 55 in the half-dose regimen, despite the fact Covid 19 disproportionately affected older patients.
“These allegations do not adequately explain how omission of the additional information from the identified statements (regarding, for example, the participation of older patients in clinical trials) renders the statements inaccurate or misleading,” the Second Circuit said. “Nor have they explained with particularity how investors were misled because they lacked the details specified in the form paragraph.”
The plaintiffs also failed to demonstrate scienter, or fraudulent intent. The plaintiffs argued AstraZeneca executives had a motive to inflate the stock to pay for their 2020 acquisition of Alexion. But that could be attributed to any officers and directors of one company looking to acquire another, the Second Circuit said.
Monroe County was represented by Robbins Geller.