September 14, 2020 - A consolidated complaint was filed.

April 7, 2020 - An investor in shares of Fifth Third Bancorp (NASDAQ: FITB) filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois over alleged violations of Federal Securities Laws by Fifth Third Bancorp in connection with certain allegedly false and misleading statements made between February 26, 2016, and March 6, 2020.

Cincinnati, OH based Fifth Third Bancorp operates as a diversified financial services company in the United States. Fifth Third Bancorp reported that its annual Total Revenue rose from over $6.15 billion in 2018 to over $7.25 billion in 2019, and that its Net Income increased from over $2.19 billion in 2018 to over $2.51 billion in 2019. On March 2, 2020, Fifth Third Bancorp filed an Annual Report on Form 10-K with the SEC, reporting the Company’s financial and operating results for the quarter and year ended December 31, 2019 (the “2019 10-K”). According to the 2019 10-K, U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) staff “notified Fifth Third that it intends to file an enforcement action in relation to alleged unauthorized account openings.”

On March 9, 2020, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) announced that it had filed a lawsuit against Fifth Third Bank, N.A. in federal court, “alleg[ing] that for several years Fifth Third, without consumers’ knowledge or consent: opened deposit and credit-card accounts in consumers’ names; transferred funds from consumers’ existing accounts to new, improperly opened accounts; enrolled consumers in unauthorized online-banking services; and activated unauthorized lines of credit on consumers’ accounts.

The [CFPB] alleges that Fifth Third violated the Consumer Financial Protection Act’s prohibition against unfair and abusive acts or practices as well as the Truth in Lending Act and the Truth in Savings Act and their implementing regulations.” Shares of Fifth Third Bancorp (NASDAQ: FITB) declined from $31.61 per share in December 2019 to as low as $14.89 per share on March 12, 2020.

According to the complaint the plaintiff alleges on behalf of purchasers of Fifth Third Bancorp (NASDAQ: FITB) common shares between February 26, 2016, and March 6, 2020, that the defendants violated Federal Securities Laws.

More specifically, the plaintiff claims that between February 26, 2016, and March 6, 2020, the defendants made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that as a result of Fifth Third Bank’s aggressive incentive policies to promote its cross-sell strategy, Fifth Third Bank employees engaged in unauthorized conduct with customer accounts, that since at least 2008, Fifth Third Bank, and by extension, Fifth Third, was aware of such unauthorized conduct and, thus, that it was violating relevant regulations and laws aimed at protecting its consumers, that Fifth Third failed to properly implement and monitor its cross-sell program, detect and stop misconduct, and identify and remediate harmed consumers, that all the foregoing subjected the Company to a foreseeable risk of heightened regulatory scrutiny or investigation, that Fifth Third’s revenues were in part the product of unlawful conduct and thus unsustainable, and that as a result, the Company’s public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times.