The Chicago-based Cision news wire has reported the Ontario Superior Court of Justice has approved the US$13 million offer made by Canadian Solar to settle a class action lawsuit with shareholders.
The Sino-Canadian solar company, based in Guelph, Ontario, made the offer in August to settle an action brought by London, Ontario-based legal practice Siskinds LLP in August 2010. The lawsuit is described as a “$100 million” class action on the Siskinds website, directed against Canadian Solar Inc, chief executive and chairman Shawn Qu and former chief financial officer Arthur Chien.
The suit alleged “Canadian Solar’s financial statements for the 2009 financial year did not comply with GAAP [generally accepted accounting principles] and that there were material weaknesses in Canadian Solar’s internal control over financial reporting during 2009.”
The Siskinds website does not indicate whether the dollar value used refers to Canadian or U.S. currency. At the time of publication, US$100 million equates to CA$129 million.
A report run by the Cision news service on Monday stated: “A settlement has been reached in the class action against Canadian Solar and certain of its current and former officers and directors alleging misrepresentations made in certain of Canadian Solar's oral statements and public disclosures released between May 26, 2009 and June 1, 2010 … The settlement is a compromise of disputed claims and is not an admission of liability or wrongdoing by Canadian Solar or any of the other defendants.”
Epiq Class Action Services Canada Inc has been appointed administrator of the settlement, according to Cision.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.