February 25, 2021 - The case was voluntarily dismissed.

October 7, 2020 - An investor in shares of Royal Caribbean Group (NYSE: RCL) filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida over alleged violations of Federal Securities Laws by Royal Caribbean Group in connection with certain allegedly false and misleading statements made between February 4, 2020 and March 17, 2020.

Miami, FL based Royal Caribbean Group operates as a cruise company. Royal Caribbean Group is the world’s second largest cruise company. Following the outbreak of COVID-19 in China, cruise companies, including Royal Caribbean Group, began to cancel voyages in that region, and customer bookings were declining globally as vacationers worried about the global spread of the virus.

On February 13, 2020, Royal Caribbean Group issued a press release stating that it had canceled 18 voyages in Southeast Asia due to recent travel restrictions and further warning that recent bookings had been softer for its broader business.

On February 25, 2020, Royal Caribbean Group filed its 2019 Form with the SEC indicating that COVID-19 concerns were negatively impacting its overall business. On March 10, 2020, Royal Caribbean Group withdrew its 2020 financial guidance, increased its revolving credit facility by $550 million, and announced that it would take cost-cutting actions due to the proliferation of COVID-19, further revealing that COVID-19 was severely impacting Royal Caribbean’s 2020 customer booking and that its safety measures were inadequate to prevent the spread of the virus on its ships.

On March 11, 2020, Royal Caribbean Group’s largest competitor, Carnival, announced a 60-day suspension of all operations, prompting concern that Royal Caribbean would follow suit. At the same time, Royal Caribbean also cancelled two cruises, beginning a series of cancellations and suspensions to follow.

On March 14, 2020, Royal Caribbean Group announced a suspension of all global cruises for 30 days.

On March 16, 2020, Royal Caribbean Group revealed that global operations could be suspended longer than anticipated, announcing the cancellations of two additional cruises throughout April and into May.

On March 18, 2020, analysts downgraded Royal Caribbean’s stock and slashed their price targets. Shares of Royal Caribbean Group (NYSE: RCL) declined from $135.32 per share in mid January 2020 to as low as $19.25 per share on March 18, 2020.

According to the complaint the plaintiff alleges on behalf of purchasers of Royal Caribbean Group (NYSE: RCL) common shares between February 4, 2020 and March 17, 2020, that the defendants violated Federal Securities Laws.

More specifically, the plaintiff claims that between February 4, 2020 and March 17, 2020, the Defendants failed to disclose material facts about the Company’s decrease in bookings outside China, instead maintaining that it was only experiencing a slowdown in bookings from China, and that Defendants failed to disclose material facts about the Company’s inadequate policies and procedures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 on its ships.