April 3 (Reuters) - Australian shipbuilder Austal Ltd sank as much as 8.4% to its lowest level in more than
four years on Monday after the United States Department of
Justice indicted three of its former U.S. employees on
manipulating financial information.
Austal, which builds ships for the U.S. Navy and is working
on parts of the Virginia class submarines, plunged to its lowest
level since October 25, 2018, and marked its worst intraday drop
since January 17.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) charged three former
employees for "allegedly making or causing to be made false and
misleading statements about Austal USA's performance and
financial condition between 2012 and 2016", the company said.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has also
filed civil charges against the three individuals, Austal said.
The SEC and DOJ alleged that the individuals artificially
reduced and suppressed an accounting metric, called estimate at
completion (EAC), in relation to multiple littoral combat ships
that Austal was building for the U.S. Navy.
The company since then has announced a write-back to adjust
its revenue and profit, settled an investigation by Australia's
securities regulator, and conducted its own investigation into
the matter, which resulted in the resignation of the president
of Austal USA.
About 1.2 million shares changed hands, compared with the
monthly average of around 791,900 shares.
Austal is down 17% so far this year, as of last close,
compared with a 2.1% increase in the ASX All Ordinaries index .
(Reporting by Sameer Manekar in Bengaluru; Editing by Sonia
Cheema)
