Toronto-based Merchant Law Group has started Canada-wide multibillion-dollar shareholder class actions against the world’s largest gold miner, Barrick Gold, and three of its senior officers.
Merchant Law Group said that it had the class actions with the Courts in Ontario and Alberta, seeking compensation for purchasers of Barrick securities from May 7, 2009, to May 23, 2013.
The plaintiffs allege that throughout that time, Barrick’s public disclosures misrepresented the status of its roughly $8.5-billion Pascua-Lama copper/gold project straddling the Argentine/Chilean border.
In April 2013, the Copiapo Court of Appeals, in Chile, ordered Barrick to halt construction at the Pascua-Lama mining project citing environmental infractions.
The class actions allege that Barrick shareholders lost billions of dollars as a result of Barrick's misrepresentations and failures regarding the Pascua-Lama mine project.
Barrick was not immediately reachable for comment.