York County v. Rambo

Investors in bonds issued by the utility Pacific Gas and Electric Company and its parent company (PG&E) filed a federal securities class action in the Northern District of California alleging that investigations of catastrophic wildfires in California in 2017 and 2018 revealed that PG&E had failed to take proper fire mitigation measures and that the company’s failures to do so directly contradicted representations made in offering documents for more than $4 billion worth of bonds. The complaint alleged that PG&E had been “implicated in directly causing the two most destructive wildfire events in California history in a span of only 13 months.” The complaint included allegations that PG&E had stated in offering documents that it had taken precautions to address climate change risks, including wildfire risks, but had failed to disclose “the heightened risk caused by PG&E’s own conduct and failure to comply with applicable regulations governing the maintenance of electrical lines, and the hundreds of fires that were already being ignited annually by the Company’s equipment.”