If you wish to serve as lead plaintiff, you must move the Court no later than 60 days from March 4, 2005. If you wish to discuss this action or have any questions concerning this notice or your rights or interests, please contact plaintiff's counsel, William Lerach or Darren Robbins of Lerach Coughlin at 800/449-4900 or 619/231-1058, or via e-mail at wsl@lerachlaw.com. If you are a member of this class, you can view a copy of the complaint as filed or join this class action online at http://www.lerachlaw.com/cases/choicepoint/. Any member of the purported class may move the Court to serve as lead plaintiff through counsel of their choice, or may choose to do nothing and remain an absent class member.
The complaint charges ChoicePoint and certain of its officers and directors with violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. ChoicePoint is a provider of identification and credential verification services to business, government and individual customers. The Company operates its business through three primary service groups: Insurance Services, Business and Government Services and Marketing Services.
The complaint alleges that during the Class Period, defendants disseminated materially false and misleading statements concerning the security of the Company's systems, its results and operations. Prior to and during the Class Period, ChoicePoint suffered breaches of its systems wherein consumer information was obtained by criminals. At the same time ChoicePoint's security breaches were concealed, two of the Company's top officers sold $20.89 million worth of their ChoicePoint stock. The complaint further alleges that the true facts, which were known by each of the defendants but concealed from the investing public during the Class Period, were as follows: (a) ChoicePoint's customer credentialing process procedures were inadequate and ineffective at limiting the dissemination of information to only authorized users; (b) ChoicePoint did not have the proper audit procedures in place in order to verify that the Company was properly limiting the dissemination of information to only authorized users; (c) ChoicePoint did not have the proper fraud detection procedures in place in order to timely detect fraudulent activity in case a security breach did occur; (d) ChoicePoint's security had been breached in similar fashion on at least two occasions, once in 2000 and again in 2002; and (e) due to ChoicePoint's failures to maintain proper security measures, over 500,000 people were exposed to the risk of identity theft.
It was subsequently revealed that its databases had been accessed by criminals, later admitting that some 145,000 people had been victimized by having their personal data exposed. On this news, ChoicePoint's stock fell to $38.72 per share.
Later, on March 4, 2005, prior to the market opening, ChoicePoint announced an exit from part of its business due to the security problems and an SEC investigation. On this news, the stock dropped below $38.00 per share.
Plaintiff seeks to recover damages on behalf of all purchasers of ChoicePoint common stock during the Class Period (the "Class"). The plaintiff is represented by Lerach Coughlin, which has expertise in prosecuting investor class actions and extensive experience in actions involving financial fraud.
Lerach Coughlin, a 140-lawyer firm with offices in San Diego, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Boca Raton, Washington, D.C., Houston, Philadelphia and Seattle, is active in major litigations pending in federal and state courts throughout the United States and has taken a leading role in many important actions on behalf of defrauded investors, consumers, and companies, as well as victims of human rights violations. Lerach Coughlin lawyers have been responsible for more than $20 billion in aggregate recoveries. The Lerach Coughlin Web site (http://www.lerachlaw.com) has more information about the firm.
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Delicious
Reddit
StumbleUpon
Digg
MySpace
Newsvine
Google Bookmark
Yahoo! Bookmark
Email
Email 
