Pomerantz LLP issued the following announcement on March 22.
On March 21, 2019, Pomerantz LLP was appointed Lead Counsel in a class action lawsuit filed against Allergan plc.
The class action, filed in United States District Court, Southern District of New York, and indexed under 18-cv-12219, is on behalf of a class consisting of all persons and entities, other than Defendants and their affiliates, who purchased or otherwise, acquired Allergan securities between February 24, 2017, and December 19, 2018, both dates inclusive (the “Class Period”), seeking to recover damages caused by Defendants’ violations of the federal securities laws and to pursue remedies under Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the “Exchange Act”) and Rule 10b-5 promulgated thereunder, against the Company and certain of its top officials.
Allergan is a pharmaceutical company that develops, manufactures, and commercializes branded pharmaceutical, device, biologic, surgical, and regenerative medicine products worldwide.
Through its Medical Devices business, the Company produces silicone breast implants. Breast implants are medical devices that are used to augment breast size or to reconstruct the breast following mastectomy or to correct a congenital abnormality.
Breast implants consist of a silicone outer shell and a filler (most commonly silicone gel or saline). Breast implants come in a variety of forms, including smooth and textured. In June 2011, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) issued an Update on the Safety of Silicone Gel-Filled Breast Implants, which reported a link between breast implants and Anaplastic Large Cell Lymphoma (“ALCL”). Following the FDA’s Update, information was added to the products’ labeling, but the added warnings are deeply embedded in a dense list of complications.
The complaint alleges that throughout the Class Period, Defendants made materially false and misleading statements regarding the Company’s business, operational and compliance policies. Specifically, Defendants made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (i) textured breast implants manufactured by Allergan were linked to ALCL; (ii) the foregoing link to cancer, when revealed, would foreseeably force Allergan to recall those textured breast implants from the market; and (iii) as a result, the Company’s public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times.
On December 18, 2018, France’s National Agency for the Safety of Medicines & Health Products ordered the recall of textured breast implants manufactured by Allergan from the European market, stating that the implants “have been linked to a rare form of cancer”—specifically, anaplastic large call lymphoma. On December 19, 2018, Allergan stated that it would remove its textured breast implants from the European market.
Following these announcements, Allergan’s stock price fell $10.20, or nearly 7%, to close at $136.56 on December 19, 2018.
Original source can be found here.