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Kaplan Fox is the court appointed lead counsel in the securities class action against Immucor, Inc. and certain individual defendants. In this case, Kaplan Fox represents the Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology Pension Plan (“CAAT” or the “Lead Plaintiff”) the appointed lead plaintiff. CAAT was appointed Lead Plaintiff on January 15, 2010.
On April 2, 2010, Lead Plaintiff filed the Consolidated Amended Class Action Complaint (the “CAC”). The gravamen of the CAC is that throughout the Class Period, Immucor and certain of its officers violated the federal securities laws by making a series of materially false and misleading statements. These statements concerned the Company’s financial results, quality procedures as well as the Company’s compliance with FDA regulations. The CAC alleges that throughout the Class Period, Defendants were warned by internal quality personnel of serious quality deficiencies at Immucor, as well as by the FDA during its various inspections of Immucor’s facility and that despite such warnings Defendants neglected recurring and critically important quality problems. In addition, throughout the Class Period, Defendants failed to disclose that the Company’s strong financial results were achieved through collusive anticompetitive pricing in violation of U.S. antitrust laws. Defendants had laid the groundwork for an antitrust conspiracy prior to the beginning of the Class Period by purchasing most of the Company’s competitors and substantially increasing the price of its products in line with the Company’s last remaining viable competitor. Subsequently, throughout the Class Period there were simultaneous, substantially similar price increases by Immucor and its main competitor.
Then, beginning in October 2007, investors began to learn the truth concerning the investigations into antitrust behaviors at Immucor. In addition, beginning in May 2008, the market began to learn the truth concerning Defendants’ flagrant disregard of quality procedures and compliance with FDA regulations. The Class Period ends on June 25, 2009, when the Company disclosed that it had received a Notice of Intent to Revoke Immucor’s licenses with respect to some of its most important products. In response to each of these disclosures, Immucor’s stock price dropped dramatically from its Class Period high of $39.00 per share.
On June 25, 2010, Defendants filed a motion to dismiss the CAC arguing that Lead Plaintiff failed to adequately plead claims under Section 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934. Lead Plaintiff’s opposition to Defendants’ motion to dismiss is due to be filed on August 30, 2010.
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