The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has affirmed the dismissal of a class action accusing American Express Co. of misleading its investors in 2006 and 2007 about its exposure to delinquent cardholder payments. In a three-page per curiam summary opinion, the circuit said that the plaintiffs in the case, Local No. 38 International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Pension Fund v. American Express, 10-3323, had failed to plead that anyone at American Express knowingly made false statements.
The named plaintiffs, a union pension fund and an individual investor, alleged that American Express senior officers Kenneth I. Chenault and Daniel T. Henry falsely told investors that the company had not relaxed its underwriting standards. But their complaint “fails to satisfactorily allege what specific contradictory information Chenault and Henry possessed or when they possessed it,” the panel said.
