By Jonathan Stempel
(Reuters) – TuSimple reached a $189 million settlement of a lawsuit accusing the self-driving truck know-how firm of defrauding shareholders by overstating its security report and concealing three insiders’ management of a Chinese language trucking rival.
A preliminary settlement of the proposed class motion was filed on Monday within the federal courtroom in San Diego, the place TuSimple is predicated, and requires a decide’s approval.
All defendants, together with the corporate, varied TuSimple founders and executives, and TuSimple’s financial institution underwriters, denied wrongdoing in agreeing to settle.
TuSimple has paid $174 million of the settlement quantity into an escrow account whereas its insurers have paid $15 million there, courtroom papers present.
The corporate delisted from Nasdaq in January, fewer than three years after elevating $1.35 billion in an April 2021 preliminary public providing.
Attorneys for TuSimple didn’t instantly reply to requests for touch upon Tuesday.
Shareholders mentioned TuSimple misrepresented the protection of its know-how previous to the IPO, with an eye fixed towards addressing the kinks on U.S. roads and transferring the improved know-how to the Chinese language rival, Hydron.
They mentioned the reality emerged in August 2022, when the Wall Avenue Journal mentioned an Arizona freeway crash 4 months earlier underscored analyst and worker considerations that TuSimple’s rush to ship driverless vans put public security in danger.
Attorneys for the shareholders could search as much as 25% of the settlement quantity, or about $47 million, for authorized charges.
TuSimple went public at $40 per share. The shares traded unchanged at 20 cents in Tuesday afternoon over-the-counter buying and selling on the Pink Sheets.
The case is Dicker et al v. TuSimple Holdings Inc et al, U.S. District Courtroom, Southern District of California, No. 22-01300.
