Members of the management team of the Danish jewellery company Pandora have been called to appear in court in a criminal case concerning one of the most spectacular stock market drops ever of a Danish company, when the firm’s share price fell by 65 percent on 2 August 2011, Berlingske Business reports.
Three-year investigation
The company’s shareholders lost 12 billion kroner when the company adjusted its expected growth from 30 percent to 0 percent. The management is accused of breaking the law on securities by holding back information about bad sales figures from investors for several weeks.
Hans Fogtdal, the economic crimes department’s vice prosecutor confirmed that the case will go to court in November 2014, three years after the incident. “We expect to interview a number of people from Pandora’s top management at the time,” he said.
The case was reported to the police in January 2012 by Finanstilsynet, the financial services authority, but until now the economic crimes department has not deemed there investigations to have reached the stage of giving rise to a criminal trial.
Pandora made a written statement to Berlingske. “We reacted correctly to a fast and unexpected drop in turnover by making public a timely and precise company notice, in which the company, on the basis of the new information and on the background of an analysis of changes in the market situation in July 2011, adjusted its annual expectations,” the company wrote.
