A new complaint was filed against Visa Inc. (V) by shareholder (plaintiff) Beibei Cai on November 20, 2024, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The defendants in the complaint are the company, CEO Ryan McInerney, CFO Chris Suh, and Peter Andreski, global corporate controller and chief accounting officer.
The plaintiff alleges that she bought Visa stock at artificially inflated prices between November 16, 2023 and September 23, 2024 (the “Class Period”). The plaintiff is now seeking compensation for her financial losses. To learn more about the lawsuit, click here.
Visa is one of the leading players in the digital payments space. It facilitates transactions between consumers, merchants, financial institutions, and government entities.
The filed complaint alleges that during the Class Period, the defendants misled Visa investors in violation of Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act.
According to the complaint, Visa intentionally misrepresented information in its financial statements submitted to the U.S. SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission). In particular, the plaintiff alleges that Suh and Andreski failed to exercise proper oversight and control over Visa’s financial statements.
The complaint accuses Visa of downplaying the risk that the company would be the target of an antitrust investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). For instance, in the annual report filed with the SEC on November 15, 2023, Visa stated that it was in compliance with federal antitrust laws, amongst other federal regulations.
Additionally, in the quarterly 10-Q reports filed in April 2024 and July 2024, the company indicated that it complied with federal antitrust laws.
However, the plaintiff alleges that as revealed in subsequent disclosures, Visa’s executives knew – or should have known – that the company was in routine violation of federal antitrust laws.
In contrast to the claims made by Visa and the other defendants in the company’s financial statements, they allegedly misled investors about its compliance with federal antitrust laws.
The truth came out on September 23, 2024, when multiple news outlets reported that the DOJ planned to file a lawsuit against Visa for antitrust violations. The next day, the DOJ filed United States of America vs. Visa Inc., which accused the company of four separate violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act. Specifically, the lawsuit alleges that Visa’s market dominance is due to systematic anticompetitive practices that thwart competition.
