San Diego, April 4, 2012 (Shareholders Foundation) -- An investigation on behalf of investors in shares of AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) was announced concerning potential breaches of fiduciary duties by certain officers and directors at AT&T Inc. in connection with potentially improperly billing the TRS Fund over the IP Relay service.

The investigation by a law firm focuses on possible claims on behalf of purchasers of the securities of AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T)) concerning whether certain statements of AT&Ts business, its prospects and its operations were materially false and misleading at the time they were made. Specifically, the investigation concerns whether certain directors and officers at AT&T Inc. breached their fiduciary duties in connection with potential violations of the False Claims Act (FCA).

According to the U.S. Department of Justice the U.S. Department of Justice filed a complaint against AT&T Corporation under the FCA for conduct related to its provision of Internet Protocol (IP) Relay services. The Justice Department said AT&T provides a service called Telecommunications Relay Services (TRS), which is a service for the deaf and hard-of-hearing. IP Relay is a text-based communications service designed to allow hearing-impaired individuals to place telephone calls to hearing persons by typing messages over the Internet, which are then read aloud to the call recipient by call-center employees. The FCC, through the TRS Fund, reimburses IP Relay providers, such as AT&T at a rate of approximately $1.30 per minute.

The Justice Department said that the IP Relay service has been abused by foreign scammers using the system to defraud American merchants with stolen credit cards and by other means and since 2009 the FCC required providers, such as AT&T to verify the accuracy of each registered users name and mailing address.

The Department of Justice alleges that AT&T violated the FCA by facilitating and seeking federal payment for IP Relay calls by international callers who were ineligible for the service and sought to use it for fraudulent purposes. The complaint alleges that AT&T knowingly adopted a non-compliant registration system that did not verify whether the user was located within the United States.

The complaint further contends that AT&T continued to employ this system even with the knowledge that it facilitated use of IP Relay by fraudulent foreign callers, which accounted for up to 95% of AT&Ts call volume. Furthermore the complaint alleges that AT&T improperly billed the TRS Fund for reimbursement of these calls and received millions of dollars in federal payments as a result.

AT&T Inc. reported that its annual Revenue rose from $111.4billion in 2008 to $114.75billion in 2011 and its Net Loss of $2.62billion in 2008 turned into a Net Income of $3.94billion in 2011.

However, despite an increased in its annual Revenue from 2009 to 2011 its Net Income dropped from $19.86billion in 2010 to under $billion in 2011.

Shares of AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) rose from as low as $22.58 in March 2009 to as high as $31.84 in March 2012. However, AT&T shares (NYSE:T) dropped from as high as $42.44 in 2007, respectively $40.89 in 2008, to under $23 in March 2009.