New Shareholder Suit Seeks to Hold Verizon Accountable for Concealing Lead Cables

Verizon investor Janis Turner filed a shareholder derivative lawsuit Wednesday (docket 2:24-cv-00272) in U.S. District Court for New Jersey in Newark arising from the company’s “long-term decision to leave toxic cable wires buried in the ground nationwide.” It’s the latest in the string of recent litigation that seeks to hold current and former Verizon and AT&T officers and board members accountable for allegedly covering up what they knew about the environmental hazards of the legacy lead telecom cables in the companies’ possession (see 2401100002). The Virginia resident’s complaint, like the others before it, alleges the officers and board members breached their fiduciary duties and violated federal securities laws. Allowing the lead cables to remain buried underground and letting them contaminate groundwater is a policy that Verizon “kept quiet, concealing it from those living near or working with the toxic wires as well as from investors, in violation of its disclosure obligations and fiduciary duties,” said the complaint.