announces that a class action lawsuit has been filed against AgEagle Aerial Systems, Inc. and certain of its officers.
The class action, filed in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, and docketed under 21-cv-01991, is on behalf of a class consisting of all persons and entities other than Defendants that purchased or otherwise, acquired publicly traded AgEagle securities between September 3, 2019 and February 18, 2021, inclusive (the “Class Period”). Plaintiff seeks to recover compensable damages caused by Defendants’ violations of the federal securities laws under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the “Exchange Act”).
AgEagle purports to be a commercial drone company. According to AgEagle’s website, the Company is engaged in the design, engineering, and manufacturing of commercial drones, as well as in providing drone services and solutions to the agriculture industry.
The Complaint alleges that throughout the Class Period, Defendants made materially false and/or misleading because they misrepresented and failed to disclose the following adverse facts pertaining to the Company’s business, operations and prospects, which were known to Defendants or recklessly disregarded by them. Specifically, Defendants made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that:
- AgEagle did not have a partnership with Amazon and in fact never had any relationship with Amazon;
- rather than correct the public’s understanding about a partnership with Amazon, Defendants were actively contributing to the rumor that AgEagle had a partnership with Amazon; and
- as a result, Defendants’ statements about AgEagle’s business, operations, and prospects, were materially false and misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis at all relevant times.
On October 14, 2020, news broke that Amazon did not have a partnership agreement with AgEagle, and in fact never did. The Wichita Business Journal published a story with the headline:
“Exclusive: Who’s AgEagle’s big customer? We now know who it’s not.”
The article reported that AgEagle was not partnering with Amazon.
On February 18, 2021, Bonitas Research published a report revealing that AgEagle
“was a pump & dump scheme orchestrated by . . . AgEagle founder and former chairman Bret Chilcott and other UAVS insiders to defraud US investors.”
On this news, shares of AgEagle, fell $5.13, or 36.4%, to close at $8.96 on February 18, 2021, damaging investors.
Source: Press Release