NEW YORK-Digital Lightwave Inc., a Clearwater, Fla., manufacturer of telecommunications network performance measurement technology, is the subject of at least three shareholder lawsuits filed late last month.
Digital Lightwave, which went public early last year, “shocked the market by announcing Jan. 23 it would restate downward its previously reported revenues for the second and third quarters of 1997,” said a notice of a class-action shareholder suit published Jan. 27 by Savette Frutkin Podell & Ryan P.C., a Philadelphia law firm.
“(Its) press release indicated that second-quarter revenues would be restated from $5.3 million to $2.7 million and that third-quarter revenues would be restated from $8.3 million to $1.4 million.”
Another announcement, made Jan. 29 by the Boston law firm of Berman DeValerio & Pease L.L.P., said Digital acknowledged its earlier revenue estimates were “recorded in violation of generally accepted accounting principles.
“Certain of Digital’s top officers collectively sold 35,320 shares of Digital common stock and pocketed more than $700,000 during the period the company was falsely recording revenue.”
The amount of Digital stock its highest ranking executives sold comprised “100 percent of their holdings in Lightwave stock,” said a Jan. 27 announcement of a third lawsuit. This one was lodged by two firms: Kaufman Malchman Kirby & Squire L.L.P., New York, and Kaufman Miller Dickstein & Grunspan P.A., Miami.
