Oshkosh Corporation designs and manufactures primarily specialty trucks and military vehicles.
The original Complaint charges Oshkosh and certain of its officers and directors with violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The Complaint alleges that during the Class Period, Defendants materially misled the investing public, thereby inflating the price of Oshkosh’s common stock, by publicly issuing materially false and misleading statements and omitting to disclose material facts necessary to make Defendants’ statements not false and misleading. As alleged in the Complaint, these statements and omissions were materially false and misleading in that they failed to disclose the following adverse facts which were known to Defendants, or recklessly disregarded by them: (a) that synergies related to Oshkosh’s European facility rationalization program for its refuse business, the Geesink Norba Group, were lower and the cost of such rationalization was higher than represented; (b) that the value of Oshkosh’s European refuse business was impaired and overstated and should have been written down; (c) that Oshkosh’s JLG access-equipment division was experiencing a dramatic decrease in demand; and (d) that, as a result of the foregoing, Oshkosh lacked any reasonable basis to maintain its financial guidance for fiscal 2008.
On June 26, 2008, Oshkosh announced that it was revising downwards the estimates for its third quarter and full fiscal 2008 financial results because of, among other things, the impairment of its goodwill associated with the Company’s European refuse collection vehicle manufacturer, the Geesink Norba Group. Following this disclosure, shares of Oshkosh common stock dropped 33%, to close at $22.29 per share, on extraordinary trading volume in excess of 10.8 million shares.
On February 4, 2009, the Court granted the Defendants’ motions to transfer the three pending cases from the Milwaukee Division to the Green Bay Division. The case was reassigned to Judge William C. Griesbach. On February 11, 2009, Judge William C. Griesbach signed the Decision and Order granting the motions to consolidate the cases and granting the motion of the Massachusetts Public Pension Funds to be appointed lead Plaintiff. On May 18, 2009, the lead Plaintiff filed a Consolidated Class Action Complaint. The Defendants responded by filing motions to dismiss the Consolidated Class Action Complaint on July 24, 2009. On March 31, 2010, Judge William C. Griesbach signed the Decision and Order granting the Defendants’ motions to dismiss. The Complaint was dismissed with prejudice.