Fraud case dropped by angry Nokia shareholder

An angry shareholder has dropped a class-action suit that he filed back in May accusing Nokia of fraud. Robert Chmielinski, a Nokia investor, had claimed that Nokia spokespeople, including CEO Stephen Elop, knowingly made false statements about how its Lumia line of Windows Phones would boost their position in the global mobile phone market. The suit was based declining stock prices.

It claimed that:

"[Nokia's] statements set forth above were materially false and misleading because Nokia's migration to a Windows platform was not going as well as represented. The Lumia 900 had a glitch which forced Nokia to offer a $100 credit and earlier Lumia offerings were not as well accepted as represented"

At the time, Nokia issued a statement acknowledging the suit, but dismissing the allegations as "without merit." Today the Finnish manufacturer followed up with another brief statement:

"Espoo, Finland - Nokia Corporation announced on May 4, 2012 that it was aware of the filing of a securities class action complaint naming Nokia Corporation as a defendant. Also two of Nokia's executives were named as defendants.  The case, entitled Chmielinski v. Nokia Corporation, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on May 3, 2012.  After further investigation, the plaintiffs have agreed to dismiss the case against all defendants without any compensation being paid to any plaintiff or their counsel by any defendant.  The complaint has been withdrawn and dismissed with prejudice by the court."

It's unlikely that the fraud case would have had any legs anyway, but this is good news for Nokia, who have bigger fish to fry. They are in the midst of patent infringement suits with RIM, HTC and Viewsonic in the U.S. and Germany, all of which could be bigs wins for them.

Source: Nokia; Via: WPCentras Thanks for the tip, Arvydasg.93!