A federal judge has named Ohio the lead plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit that seeks to represent all Facebook investors who lost money in the wake of revelations about the company.
Filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the suit accuses Facebook of violating federal securities laws by publicly misrepresenting its policies and practices, thus artificially inflating the value of its stock—until whistleblowers came forward.
“This case is about lies and losses—Facebook’s lies, and the losses incurred by our pension systems and others,“ Ohio Attorney General David Yost said in a July 28 statement. ”Ohio is happy and determined to lead in enforcing accountability against Facebook.”
In late 2021, leaked documents revealed that “Facebook misled the public about how its proprietary algorithm promoted offensive and dangerous content to users,” Yost said.
As a result of the scandal, Facebook’s reputation suffered and its stock price plummeted, which “erased more than $100 billion in shareholder value,” the suit says.
The Ohio Public Employees Retirement System (OPERS), which manages assets on behalf of more than 1.1 million state employees, retirees, and beneficiaries, lost $3 million in Facebook stock value, Yost said in the statement.
