PARIS — Pandora has lost its criminal case.
A year after the Public Prosecution for Serious Economic Crimes in Denmark filed an indictment at the district court in Glostrup, the court found the jewelry company guilty of breaching a section of the Securities Trading Act in 2011, the firm said in a press statement today.
The Copenhagen-based company is to pay a fine of 2 million Danish kroner, or $334,915 at current exchange.
Pandora said it was “reviewing whether to appeal to the higher courts.”
The verdict refers to a case hinged on a profit warning issued by the company on Aug. 2, 2011, downgrading its 2011 sales projections and causing shares to plummet 65.4 percent in a single trading day.
According to a group of investors who filed a separate civil lawsuit against the company in July, this resulted in the destruction of 12.5 billion Danish kroner, or $2.3 billion at average exchange, of the brand’s market value.
The district court today said Pandora issued the announcement too late, suggesting the warning should have been communicated prior to July 18.
“The evidence presented in the criminal case is important. It supports our claim that the company knew what was going on before it communicated it. The verdict will speed things up for us and will strengthen our case,” noted Erik Bomans, partner at Belgian law firm Deminor, the legal representative of the group of 36 mainly institutional investors seeking damages.
Pandora said the court decision Tuesday would have no impact on the company’s outlook for 2014.