AMSTERDAM - Investors in the United States are preparing a mass claim against Dutch chip machine manufacturer ASML. They accuse the Veldhoven-based company of misleading them prior to a sharp share price drop in October, the Financieele Dagblad reported. 

At the time, ASML accidentally published its third quarter figures early and the results were more disappointing than expected. This shocked the market and prompted a share price drop of nearly 16 percent. The disappointing figures were mainly due to a weak inflow of orders. 

The American investors feel that ASML should have informed them earlier about the disappointing order numbers. They now want to recover the financial damage they suffered due to the sharp drop in the share price from ASML. According to FD, the claimants include several large parties. Multiple law firms are also gathering investors to file mass claims. 

There is an argument for ASML presenting too rosy a picture, FD journalist Bert van Dijk told BNR. ASML did suddenly change its tone after a long period of optimism in which it always said that the market was recovering and that the recovery would happen in the second half of the year. 

But he stressed that determining the right moment to inform the market is very much a gray area. “When do you report something? Should you only do so if there are real material changes? Of course, orders can come in right up to the last minute.” 

Van Dijk does not dare to predict whether the lawsuit has a chance of success. The central question will be whether ASML “really only knew at the last moment” that order figures would be disappointing. 

He doubts whether this will actually come to anything - class actions by investors against listed companies are common in the U.S. with over 100 such cases filed this year alone. But this doesn’t make the situation any less unpleasant for ASML. Such lawsuits can drag on for years and entail considerable costs.