| Company: | Juniper Networks, Inc. |
| Ticker Symbol: | JNPR |
| Class Period: | Jul-20-10 to Jul-26-11 |
| Date Filed: | Aug-18-11 |
| Lead Plaintiff Deadline: | Oct-17-11 |
| Court: | Northern District of California |
| Allegations: | |
The complaint charges Juniper and certain of its officers and directors with violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Juniper designs, develops, and sells products and services that together provide its customers with network infrastructure that creates responsive and trusted environments for accelerating the deployment of services and applications over a single network.
The complaint alleges that during the Class Period, defendants issued materially false and misleading statements regarding the Company's business practices and financial results. Defendants repeatedly assured investors that Juniper was well positioned to deliver against its long-term model of 20% or higher revenue growth and 25% or higher operating margin, while failing to disclose negative trends in Juniper's business. As a result of defendants' false statements, Juniper's stock traded at artificially inflated prices during the Class Period, reaching a high of $44.46 per share on March 8, 2011.
Then, after the market closed on July 26, 2011, Juniper issued a press release reporting disappointing second quarter 2011 financial results. In addition, the Company provided disappointing guidance for the third quarter of 2011 and lowered its revenue guidance for the full year to growth of between 12% to 14%, which was far below the Company's long-term model of 20% revenue growth. On this news, Juniper's stock collapsed $6.51 per share to close at $24.66 per share on July 27, 2011, a one-day decline of nearly 21% on volume of 61.6 million shares.
According to the complaint, the true facts, which were known by the defendants but concealed from the investing public during the Class Period, were as follows: (a) due to technical issues with certain of its products and turnover in its sales force, Juniper was losing market share in its security business to its competitors; (b) in order to maintain market share and meet its previously announced growth rate targets in the face of the intense pricing pressure being exerted by the Company's competitors in both the switching and routing markets, Juniper was forced to dramatically lower prices, which was having a material adverse effect on the Company's margins; (c) Juniper's new product launches would not meaningfully contribute to the Company's operations until 2012; and (d) based on the foregoing, defendants lacked a reasonable basis for their positive statements about Juniper's growth rates, market share, orders, new product introductions, gross and operating margins, and the Company's ability to deliver upon its long-term growth model.
If you acquired the securities of the defendants during the Class Period you may, no later than the Lead Plaintiff Deadline shown above, request that the Court appoint you as lead plaintiff through counsel of your choice. You may also choose to remain an absent class member. A lead plaintiff must meet certain requirements.
