Shareholder Sues Yum! for Billions (chicken overdosed with antibiotics)

[The Straight Story]

Shareholder Sues Yum! for Billions

LOUISVILLE (CN) - Yum! Brands, owners of KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, cost shareholders billions of dollars by concealing that a supplier was providing chicken overdosed with antibiotics to its restaurants in China, a shareholder says in court.

Bert Bauman sued Yum! Brands in a shareholders' derivative complaint in Jefferson County Court. He also sued 19 of its former or current officers and directors.

Bauman claims the defendants "utterly failed to implement appropriate internal controls at Yum's Chinese operations. This lack of internal controls allowed Yum's senior management to violate food health and safety standards in its restaurants in China for several years which, when revealed, subjected the company to a major decrease in business and may result in significant fines and penalties. In addition, the individual defendants caused or allowed the company to issue materially false and misleading statements concerning the company's financial condition and future business prospects, including misrepresentations and omissions of material facts concerning Yum's financial disclosures in filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission."

Overdosing of food animals with antibiotics is believed to contribute to the growth of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria and viruses in the animals and the people who eat them.

http://www.courthousenews.com/2013/05/14/57603.htm

[clarice]

1. still tastes like chicken. nt

[JimDandy]

2. That's an interesting tactic.

I wonder if the court will agree he has standing to sue. His individual losses surely don't amount to billions, but the losses by all shareholders could amount to that. Maybe a class action would be more appropriate. And kudos to him if he devised this as a way to attack the use of antibiotics in the meat industry.