A lawsuit filed Monday in the Delaware Court of Chancery alleges a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary intentionally made misleading statements during a merger to cut down on robotic surgical device competition.

Fortis Advisors, acting as a representative for former stockholders of Auris Health Inc., which merged with Ethicon Inc. in 2019, argues Ethicon pitted two devices against each other and violated the companies’ merger agreement multiple times with the intention of shorting stockholders billions of dollars in “earn-out” payments.