Utah-based MonaVie unloaded overvalued shares on employees, suit says

Admin   |   20 December, 2014   |   351   |   3980

A federal court lawsuit is accusing nutritional fruit juice marketer MonaVie LLC and its principals of financial shenanigans for selling shares to an employee retirement program at a premium, only to see the value crash nearly 100 percent.

A proposed class action lawsuit says the South Jordan company sold shares valued at $186 million to an employee stock ownership program in 2010 that are now worth only 0.5 percent of that amount.

The lawsuit, filed by Washington, D.C., attorney Gregory Porter, also names Bankers Trust Co. of South Dakota, which the complaint alleges failed to fulfill its duties as trustee of the program by allowing MonaVie to sell shares at a highly inflated value using a loan carrying an exorbitant interest rate.