A class action lawsuit alleges that the executive vice president and chief financial officer of Bed Bath & Beyond Inc BBBYwho died on Friday after falling from the 18th floor of a New York skyscraper in what the medical examiner called a suicide, and GameStop Corp. GME chairman Ryan Cohenartificially inflated the company’s value through a “pump and dump” scheme.
The shareholder lawsuit: Gustavo Arnalwho died at the age of 52, and Cohen are named as defendants in the class action lawsuit filed Aug. 23 in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Arnal, who has been with Bed Bath since 2020, sold 55,013 shares of the company’s stock for a total of nearly $1.4 million in multiple transactions between Aug. 16 and 17. After the sale, the late CFO still owned around 255,400 shares.
Related link: Gustavo Arnal Net Worth & Insider Trading
The investors behind the lawsuit said that after believing Bed Bath & Beyond’s financial reports and SEC filings, they closed short positions and opened long positions in the shares.
Lead Plaintiff Pengcheng Si and her spouse said they purchased a total of 8,020 shares of Bed Bath common stock at fraudulently inflated prices during the period below and realized and suffered market losses of approximately $106,480.
According to the plaintiff, who accessed the company’s financial reporting and public statements up to mid-August 2022, Bed Bath & Beyond appeared to be a successful turnaround deal. Bed Bath appeared to be “fundamentally reshaping” its goals and spinning off the Buybuy Baby brand to move quickly toward profitability and growth, the lawsuit says.
That image was almost entirely fiction, the lawsuit alleges.
Benzinga has reached out to Bed Bath & Beyond for comment on the class action lawsuit.
The allegations against Bed Bath & Beyond: Cohen conspired with Arnal, JPMorgan Chase and others from March to August of this year to carry out a fraudulent plan to artificially…
