CNNMoney reports that Robbins Geller Rudman and Dowd, the law firm that won $7.2 billion in a class-action suit against energy trade Enron, has sued Goldman Sachs (GS) for deceiving investors about the bank’s financial conditions.
The complaint asserts that Goldman, not only totally failed to exercise its obligations as a firm to disclose to investors vital information in the sale of Abacus 2007-AC1, a synthetic CDO that hinged on the performance of subprime residential mortgage-backed securities, but also “chose not to issue a Form 8-K alerting investors to this event and later even omitted this information from its Form 10-Qs. As a result, investors were unaware the SEC was even investigating ABACUS 2007-AC1.”
The lawsuit seeks to represent investors who bought shares between Oct. 15, 2009, and April 16 of this year at artificially inflated prices, a time which coincides with Goldman’s hesitation to reveal that it had received a Wells notice from the SEC, indicating the federal regulator intended to enforce charges against the Abacus deal.
The suit names CEO Lloyd Blankfein, CFO David Viniar and President Gary Cohn among the defendants.