Abbott Laboratories Shareholders Have One More Day Remaining to Return Documents to Stull, Stull & Brody to Serve as Representative Plaintiff

Business Wire, Dec 16, 1999

If you purchased Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT) stock between March 17, 1999 and Nov. 2, 1999, you are required to act before Dec. 20, 1999 if you wish to participate in the class action as a representative plaintiff in the securities suit filed on Oct. 20, 1999. Federal law requires that papers be filed by Dec. 20, 1999. In order to participate as a representative plaintiff, your signed certification must be received in our office by Dec. 17, 1999.

Throughout the Class Period defendants concealed from shareholders, potential investors and securities analysts the fact that Abbott was seriously out of compliance with government quality assurance regulations at its North Chicago, Illinois, Diagnostic Products Division plant which manufactures most of the medical diagnostic equipment sold by Abbott. This adverse state of affairs, which threatened a segment of Abbott's business which accounts for over 20% of Abbott's annual revenues, was concealed from the market until Sept. 29, 1999, when Abbott, for the first time, publicly disclosed the existence of a March 17, 1999 letter from the FDA to Abbott detailing violations found by FDA inspectors during an inspection that was conducted from September to Nov. 10, 1998. When the market learned of the existence of the FDA warning letter on Sept. 29, 1999, the company's stock price plunged and plaintiff and other similarly situated were substantially harmed. It was, however, only about a month later, on Nov. 2, 1999, that the market learned of the true extent of the damage to Abbott resulting from the FDA inspections and warning letter, when Abbott agreed to pay a $100 million civil penalty and pull 125 types of medical-diagnostic test kits off the United States market as a consequence of the FDA inspections and warning letter.

Stull, Stull & Brody has litigated many class actions for violations of securities laws in federal courts over the past 25 years and has obtained court approval of substantial settlements on numerous occasions. In 1994, Stull, Stull & Brody served as co-trial counsel in Morse vs. Abbott Laboratories, C.A. No. 90 C 1982 (N.D. Ill. 1994), where, after trial, a jury verdict awarded $15 million to a class of Abbott shareholders.

If you wish to discuss this action or have any questions concerning this notice or your rights or interests with respect to these matters, please contact Tzivia Brody, Esq. at Stull, Stull & Brody by calling toll-free 1-800-337-4983, or by email at SSBNY@aol.com, or by fax at 212/490-2022, or by writing to Stull, Stull & Brody, 6 East 45th Street, New York, NY 10017.