The lead plaintiff deadline is today for class action lawsuitson behalf of Avista Corp.’s stockholders who may have lost moneyafter the company reported a loss of $22 million in the secondquarter. The losses followed unhedged power trades in the forwardmarket in the second quarter.

In June, Avista acknowledged that one of its energy traders hadentered into excessive levels of short-term, fixed-price powercontracts. The trader then allegedly committed suicide after thetransactions were revealed (see Daily GPI, June 22).

Several class action lawsuits were filed in July (see Daily GPI, Aug. 1), and the latest law firm to file asuit was Spector, Roseman & Kodroff P.C. of Philadelphia. Thelawsuit, filed last week, alleges that statements made by Avista’spresident and CEO that “Avista Utilities did not generally hold energycommodity instruments for speculative trading purposes, but ratherengaged in trading energy commodity instruments contracts to hedgeagainst price fluctuations associated with the management of resourceswas false.”

The newest lawsuit also alleges that the defendants’ statementsregarding “among other things, the purported ‘strong performance’of the Avista Utilities unit were misleading” because they omittedfacts about the company’s short position and the “many millions ofdollars it would cost the company to cover the position.”

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