 | ||
|
| Home Annual/Quarterly Updates About Us
|
Juniper Networks, Inc. Summary: According to the Company’s FORM 10-Q for the quarterly period ended June 30, 2005, various cases pending in the Southern District of New York have been coordinated for pretrial proceedings as In re Initial Public Offering Securities Litigation, 21 MC 92. In April 2002, plaintiffs filed a consolidated amended complaint in the action against the Company, alleging violations of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Defendants in the coordinated proceeding filed motions to dismiss. In October 2002, the Company’s officers were dismissed from the case without prejudice pursuant to a stipulation. On February 19, 2003, the court granted in part and denied in part the motion to dismiss, but declined to dismiss the claims against the Company.
In June 2004, a stipulation for the settlement and release of claims against the issuers, including the Company, was submitted to the Court for approval. The terms of the settlement, if approved, would dismiss and release all claims against participating defendants (including the Company). In exchange for this dismissal, Directors and Officers insurance carriers would agree to guarantee a recovery by the plaintiffs from the underwriter defendants of at least $1 billion, and the issuer defendants would agree to an assignment or surrender to the plaintiffs of certain claims the issuer defendants may have against the underwriters. The settlement is subject to a number of conditions, including court approval.
The original lawsuit asserts claims under Section 12 of the Securities Act of 1933 and Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 promulgated by the SEC thereunder and seeks to recover damages. The complaint alleges that Juniper Networks and certain of its officers at the time of its IPO violated the federal securities laws by issuing and selling Juniper Networks common stock pursuant to Juniper Networks's initial public offering and a secondary offering of Juniper Networks stock without disclosing to investors that several of the underwriters of the Juniper Networks IPO had solicited and received excessive and undisclosed commissions from certain investors. In exchange for the excessive commissions, the complaint alleges, defendants allocated shares of Juniper Networks stock to certain investors at the IPO price of $5.67 per share. (All stock and price data herein reflect both Juniper Networks's 3:1 and 2:1 stock splits for shareholders of record as of December 31, 1999 and May 15, 2000, respectively.) To receive the allocations (i.e., the ability to purchase shares) at$5.67, the defendant IPO underwriters' brokerage customers had to agree to purchase additional shares in the aftermarket at progressively higher prices. The requirement that customers make additional purchases at progressively higher prices as the price of Juniper Networks stock rocketed upward (a practice known on Wall Street as "laddering") was intended to (and did) drive Juniper Networks's share price up to artificially high levels. This artificial price inflation, the complaint alleges, enabled both the defendant IPO underwriters and their customers to reap enormous profits by buying Juniper Networks stock at the $5.67 IPO price and then selling it later for a profit at inflated aftermarket prices, which rose as high as $17.67 during its first day of trading. Rather than allowing their customers to keep their profits from the IPO, the complaint alleges, the defendant underwriters of Juniper Networks's IPO required their customers to "kick back" some of their profits in the form of secret commissions. These secret commission payments were sometimes calculated after the fact based on how much profit each investor had made from his or her IPO stock allocation. The complaint also alleges that Juniper Networks and the defendant underwriters of the secondary offering of Juniper Networks stock (certain of the defendant IPO underwriters and Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Incorporated), were able to price the secondary offering at an artificially high $31.67 per share due to the continued effects of the foregoing violations. The complaint further alleges that defendants violated the Securities Act of 1933 because the Prospectuses distributed to investors and the Registration Statements filed with the SEC in order to gain regulatory approval for the Juniper Networks offerings contained material misstatements regarding the commissions that the underwriters would derive from the IPO and failed to disclose the additional commissions and "laddering" scheme discussed above.
INDUSTRY CLASSIFICATION:
SIC Code: 3576
Sector: Technology
Industry: Communications Equipment
| COMPANY/ISSUER NAME: | Juniper Networks, Inc. |
| COMPANY/ISSUER TICKER: | JNPR |
| COMPANY WEBSITE: | http://www.juniper.net/ |
| FIRST IDENTIFIED COMPLAINT IN THE DATABASE | |||||||||||||||||
| Collegeware Asset Management, LP, et al. v. Juniper Networks, Inc., et al. | |||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||
| DOCUMENTS FOR THE FIRST IDENTIFIED COMPLAINT | |||
| Type: | Date on the document: | ||
| REFERENCE COMPLAINT | |||||||||||||||||
| In Re Juniper Networks, Inc. Initial Public Offering Securities Litigation | |||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||
| DOCUMENTS FOR THE REFERENCE COMPLAINT | |||
| Amended Class Action Complaint For Violations Of The Federal Securities Laws | |||
| Type: Complaint | Date on the document: 04/19/2002 | ||
| U.S. District Court Civil Docket | |||
| Type: Docket | Date on the document: 03/31/2005 | ||
| OTHER DOCUMENTS | |||
| Case Name and/or Number: | |||
| Type: | Date on the document: | ||
WARNING AND DISCLAIMER OF LIABILITY:
The information included on this Web site, whether provided by personnel employed by Stanford Law School or by third parties, is provided for research and teaching purposes only. Neither Stanford University, Stanford Law School, nor any of their employees, agents, contractors, or affiliates warrant the accuracy or completeness of the information or analyses displayed herein, and we caution all readers that inclusion of any information on this site does not constitute an endorsement of the truthfulness or accuracy of that information. In particular, this Web site contains complaints and other documents filed in federal and state courts, which make allegations that may or may not be accurate. No reader should, on the basis of information contained in or referenced by this Web site, assume that any of these allegations are truthful.
Go to Search page | Go to Case Index page | Back to Top