Also: SeaWorld Will No Longer Allow Trainers to Ride Dolphins (See below)
The settlement, which still must be approved by a judge, comes just a week before a jury trial was to begin on the 2014 case
By Lori Weisberg / San Diego Union-Tribune / Feb. 11, 2020
SeaWorld Entertainment announced Tuesday that it has agreed to pay $65 million to settle longstanding lawsuits claiming it deceived investors when it claimed early on that the anti-captivity documentary “Blackfish” had no ill effect on park attendance.
The settlement comes just a week before a jury trial was to begin for a class action lawsuit that originated in 2014 SeaWorld, in a Tuesday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, said that the settlement does not “constitute an admission, concession, or finding of any fault, liability, or wrongdoing by the Company or any defendant.”
The settlement, says SeaWorld, is still subject to approval in federal court.
SeaWorld last year had tried to have the principal class action case thrown out, but in November U.S. District Judge Michael Anello in San Diego ruled against SeaWorld and concluded that a trial should move forward, stating that “a rational jury could conclude that there has been a primary violation of federal securities law.”
For the balance of the article, please go here.
Here’s another recent news piece of significance.
SeaWorld Will No Longer Allow Trainers to Ride Dolphins
SeaWorld Entertainment is pulling the plug on its longstanding practice of trainers riding on dolphins in shows at its theme parks. The move comes after a nearly year-long campaign by animal rights activists to convince the company to prohibit the stunt, which includes riding on the backs of dolphins and standing on their faces.
The move away from such dolphin show theatrics was disclosed in a letter this month from a SeaWorld lawyer to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. It addressed a shareholder proposal made in December by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals calling on the company to end what it described as “circus-style” practices. PETA owned 163 shares of SeaWorld stock as of December.
SeaWorld Entertainment stated that it “no longer demonstrates ‘surfing’ [on dolphins] at any of its locations, and plans to phase out the demonstration of standing on rostrums within the next few months, despite its belief that neither of these behaviors are harmful to the animals in any way.”
For more, go to CBSNews.
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SIX years to bring a wrongful lawsuit? Something VERY wrong in that. Not to mention the fact that’s its all about HUMAN attendance, as opposed to the exploitation and incarceration of cetaceans. OMG, backpedaling on the minutiae of standing on a cetacean’s nostrum… really? This corporation is such SCUM…how many more absurd lawsuits must we endure?!