Lawyers for troubled Brazilian oil company Petrobras on Wednesday asked the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York to exclude certain groups of plaintiffs from a class-action suit against the firm, according to Reuters.
The class action claims damages due to investors in the debt-laden oil giant because of the notorious bribery scandal which led to a plunge in Petrobras’ stock price.
Petrobras’ lawyers say that the class action should include only investors who conducted transactions in the US, where the legal case has been brought, therefore excluding trades done on exchanges in other countries.
They also claim that there is a failure to prove that the bribes-for-inflated-contracts scheme, which cost the company at least $2bn, was a direct cause of the share price’s fall.
Their aim is to have some investors decertified as a group of plaintiffs, effectively reversing a lower court decision from early this year.
