A US District Court judge has dismissed all counts in a multidistrict class action lawsuit alleging securities fraud and other claims against US Office Products and its founder Jonathan Ledecky.
Plaintiffs seeking to represent classes of shareholders filed the original complaints against US Office Products (USOP) and Mr. Ledecky in 1998, claiming the company had made a series of materially false and misleading statements in violation of Sections 10(b), 14(a) and 20 of the Securities Exchange Act in connection with a major restructuring and stock buy-back completed in June 1998, which included spin-offs of four of the company's divisions. Share prices of USOP and certain of the spin-off companies subsequently faltered, leading to the filing of the class action lawsuits and five other lawsuits brought by individuals who had merged their companies with USOP in 1997. USOP subsequently went into bankruptcy and was liquidated. The Court had dismissed two of the lawsuits brought by individual shareholders in 2003.
David P. Donovan represented US Office Products before Judge Ricardo Urbina of the US District Court for the District of Columbia.