Amgen Faces Lawsuit For Hiding Its Stupendous Tax Bill Of $10B

In a complaint filed in Manhattan federal court, a Detroit-based pension fund said Amgen Inc AMGN concealed the dispute over its international tax strategy between July 2020 and April 2022 and had its investors wait for too long on disclosing taxes and penalties bill of $10.7 billion.
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) accused Amgen of underreporting taxes from 2010 to 2015 by inappropriately attributing its U.S. profits to a Puerto Rico subsidiary.
Though Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory, it is considered a foreign country for corporate tax purposes.
Related: Senate Finance Committee Expands Amgen's Tax Probe.
The plaintiff said Amgen's share price fell 6.5% on August 4, 2021, and 4.3% on April 28, 2022, because the company waited until those dates to disclose its potential liabilities, Reuters reported.
"Defendants failed to take any meaningful accrual or otherwise reveal the staggering amount of back taxes and penalties claimed by the U.S. government," causing shareholder losses when the truth was revealed, the fund said.
CEO Robert Bradway and CFO Peter Griffith are also defendants.
Amgen said it was reviewing the complaint.
Amgen is among the drugmakers the Senate Finance Committee examined over their tax practices.
Its effective tax rate was 10.8% in 2022, lower than average among large U.S. drug companies.
Price Action: AMGN shares are down 1.30% at $230.16 on the last check Tuesday.