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The law firm of Milberg Weiss Bershad & Schulman LLP has announced that it has filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of purchasers of shares in game publisher Majesco se...

Simon Carless, Blogger

July 18, 2005

2 Min Read

The law firm of Milberg Weiss Bershad & Schulman LLP has announced that it has filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of purchasers of shares in game publisher Majesco seeking monetary compensation, following the dramatic drop in the company's share value and the resignation of CEO and Chairman Carl Yankowski last week after the company's 2005 outlook veered sharply from a net profit to a net loss. The complaint against Majesco and current or former Majesco officers Carl Yankowski, Jan E. Chason and Jesse Sutton alleges that the company represented that the Company's revenue and income would continue to grow over its impressive 2004 and first half of 2005 results in its fiscal year 2005. But, claim the lawyers: "As defendants knew or recklessly disregarded, the Company's strong growth was unsustainable because retailers would either return a material quantity of unsold products or would meet 2005 demand by selling off excess inventory instead of ordering new products." The lawsuit continues by suggesting: "In addition, unbeknownst to investors, but known to or recklessly disregarded by defendants, two of the Company's new video game titles flopped, and the Company could not meet its earnings expectations without the success of these new titles." This allegation refers to Advent Rising and Psychonauts, two of Majesco's higher-profile releases in 2005, and ones that have so far not managed to live up to expectations. Milberg Weiss is alleging that Majesco was motivated to do this so that Majesco's secondary offering, a $75 million round of funding that closed at the end of January 2005, would be priced higher than it would have been had investors known the truth about the Company's business. However, Majesco has not yet commented on the suit, and the company's shares closed for the day at $3.46, down from a 52-week high of $23.66.

About the Author(s)

Simon Carless

Blogger

Simon Carless is the founder of the GameDiscoverCo agency and creator of the popular GameDiscoverCo game discoverability newsletter. He consults with a number of PC/console publishers and developers, and was previously most known for his role helping to shape the Independent Games Festival and Game Developers Conference for many years.

He is also an investor and advisor to UK indie game publisher No More Robots (Descenders, Hypnospace Outlaw), a previous publisher and editor-in-chief at both Gamasutra and Game Developer magazine, and sits on the board of the Video Game History Foundation.

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