Pension Fund Sues Walmart for Access to Documents

It was revealed on Thursday that the Indiana Electrical Workers Pension Trust Fund IBEW has sued Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT). The Indiana union pension fund owns shares in Walmart and wants access to thousands of internal documents related to allegations that the Walmart de Mexico subsidiary bribed Mexican government officials.

The lawsuit, filed in the Delaware Court of Chancery, said Walmart had made a “woefully deficient” production of documents in response to an earlier out-of-court demand. The pension fund claimed that those documents the company produced were so heavily redacted as to be nearly worthless. The complaint said that nearly half of 3,474 pages of documents were entirely blacked out.

The lawsuit seeks an order requiring Walmart to permit inspection and copying of all of the books and records demanded. Walmart is engaged in an internal investigation, and the company has said it is cooperating with investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

“Walmart has produced thousands of pages of documents, in compliance with the Delaware rules,” a lawyer for Walmart said in a statement. “We will respond to this complaint in due course.”

After falling about 3% Thursday, Walmart shares ticked up slightly in afterhours trading to $72.16. That is in a 52-week range of $49.94 to $75.24.