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Ericsson and CEO Boerje Ekholm have been criticised heavily in
the past year for their handling of an internal probe into the
company's operations in Iraq and a scandal involving potential
payments to Islamic State.
The shareholders, including several investment firms and pension
funds, have filed separate lawsuits with a Swedish court but
their actions are coordinated, the paper reported.
"Ericsson disputes the claims in their entirety and intends to
defend itself vigorously in this matter, which is unprecedented
in Swedish litigation and contrary to fundamental principles of
Swedish corporate law," the company said in an emailed
statement.
The Swedish court did not respond after business hours to a
request for comment.
Dagens Industri said the shareholders are demanding compensation
for a sharp drop in Ericsson shares since Feb. 16, 2022, after
the paper published CEO Ekholm's disclosure in an interview of
an internal report about company activities in Iraq. The share
price has halved since then to 52.71 crowns on Friday.
In May this year, Nasdaq Stockholm concluded a review of the
company's public disclosures concerning the report.
It found that it "cannot come to the conclusion that the content
of the report was such that a reasonable investor would have
used such information as part of his/her investment decision."
($1 = 10.5496 Swedish crowns)
(Reporting by Gwladys Fouche in Oslo and Marie Mannes in
Stockholm; Editing by Louise Heavens and Richard Chang)
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