The list of shareholder lawsuits filed against electric-vehicle manufacturer Lordstown Motors Corp. and its current or former executives continues to grow, The Business Journal Daily reports.
The latest lawsuit was filed July 9 in U.S. District Court in Delaware, making it the 11th class-action complaint brought against the company or its executives since March. Seven of these complaints were filed in U.S. District Court in Youngstown and four of them are now consolidated. Four others were filed in Delaware.
Lordstown Motors has yet to answer any of the complaints in court.
Investor Evarista Sarabia alleges in the July 9 lawsuit – as do all previous complaints related to Lordstown Motors – that company executives and directors misled investors about preorders of Lordstown Motors’ inaugural product, the all-electric Endurance pickup.
Members of the Lordstown leadership team appear to have sold large amounts of Lordstown stock just before reports of various troubles at the company became public, Car and Driver reported. Five top Lordstown executives — including president Rich Schmidt, former CFO Julio Rodriguez, and propulsion head Chuan “John” Vo — sold some of their shares worth a total of more than $8 million in early February when the stock was trading around $24.
Shares were trading this morning at $8.35.
A short-seller report published by Hindenburg Research March 12 alleged that then-company CEO Burns’ claims of 100,000 preorders were mostly “fictitious” and that the company lacked the financial resources to start production of the Endurance. Lordstown Motors’ stock tumbled more than 16% that day.
Later that month the SEC asked Lordstown Motors Corp for information related to its merger with blank-check company DiamondPeak Holdings and preorders of its vehicles. Read more.
