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By Kathy Wray Coleman, associate publisher, editor-in-chief
COLUMBUS, Ohio-Based out of Columbus, Ohio, the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System (OPERS), Ohio's largest public pension system, has filed a class-action lawsuit in federal district court against Facebook, alleging that it lost $100 billion in shareholder value this year and faced immense reparable harm because of Facebook's shady and allegedly illegal practices and polices.
Facebook is owned by Meta Platforms, the parent company. It was founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, along with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes
The lawsuit seeks class action status and also names three top executives as defendants– Zuckerberg, Chief Financial Officer David Wehner, and Vice President of Global Affairs Nick Clegg. It is the first of its kind against the social media giant from an Ohio plaintiff as large and influential as OPERS.
The suit claims in relevant part that Facebook and the other named defendants acted in wanton disregard of plaintiffs' legal rights by arbitrarily manipulating its stock prices and by perpetuating a social forum on Instagram in particular that is plagued with violent extremism and other illegal activity that remains harmful to users across the board, including children.
According to the lawsuit, which seeks damages and an injunction, Facebook violated federal security laws and sold OPERS and its investors inflated stock between May and September of 2021 that later plunged because of alleged malfeasance and other alleged illegal activity. The actions by Facebook, the suit says, and those of the individually named defendants, created undue and irreparable harm to plaintiffs.
OPERS manages $125 billion on behalf of 1.1 million Ohioans and the lawsuit says it paid $49 million for 139,000 shares of Facebook stock in 2021 "at artificially inflated prices."
The lawsuit comes on the heels of damaging testimony before Congress by former Facebook project manager Frances Haugen, who testified and told lawmakers that the social media outlet "put their astronomical profits before people."
The lawsuit says that after news reports on Haugen's testimony and other public disclosures relative to alleged impropriety, Facebook's stock prices declined and OPERS lost money, and viable investments.
The OPERS Board of Trustees, which is all White and made the investments with Facebook that form the basis of the troubling lawsuit and possible mismanagement of retirees' pension funds, is led by board chair Chris Mabe
