Coors Employees Sue For Plan Losses

September 1, 2005 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Employees are suing Molson Coors Brewing Co. for failing to disclose that Adolph Coors Co. was not meeting profit targets before its merger with Molson Inc. this year.

Bloomberg reports that the suit asks for Molson Coors to pay for losses to the plan resulting from a drop in share price.   Molson Coors shares plunged $14.30, or 19%, April 28 after the company reported a first-quarter loss of 74 cents a share instead of the 36 cent profit analysts expected.

The suit says Molson Coors stock was “plainly unsuitable and imprudent” as an investment option for the plan and its participants and the defendants should have “taken appropriate action, including adoption of a reasonable policy of divestment, elimination or restriction of further investment,” Bloomberg reports.

The company was previously sued by investors alleging that the company failed to disclose a slump in US revenue before shareholders approved the merger of the two companies in January and February.

Molson Coors spokeswoman, Aimee Valdez, said several lawsuits have been filed relating to the merger.   Bloomberg also tells of an SEC filing where Molson Coors is investigating a complaint over the sale of stock and exercising of stock options by the company’s Chief Executive Leo Kiely and Chief Financial Officer Timothy Wolf.

The case is Phillips v. Molson Coors Brewing Co., U.S. District Court, District of Delaware.

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