Hasbro executives including CEO Chris Cocks are being sued for alleged securities violations.
First reported by GoLocalProv, a group of Hasbro shareholders have filed suit against Cocks and his fellow execs due to what they call “breaches of their fiduciary duties as directors and/or officers of Hasbro, unjust enrichment, waste of corporate assets, gross mismanagement, abuse of control" as well as violations of the United States Securities Exchange Act. Plaintiffs Joseph Crocono and Ultan McGlone, whom have been Hasbro shareholders since 2000 and 2001, respectively, say in the complaint that the company’s public statements during shareholder calls 2021 through 2023 were “materially false and misleading."
“In light of the breaches of fiduciary duty engaged in by the Individual Defendants, the majority of whom are the Company’s current directors, of the collective engagement in fraud and misconduct by the Company’s directors, of the substantial likelihood of the directors’ liability in this derivative action and Defendants Cocks and Williams’ liability in the Securities Class Action, their being beholden to each other, their longstanding business and personal relationships with each other, and of their not being disinterested or independent directors, a majority of the Board cannot consider a demand to commence litigation against themselves and the other Individual defendants on behalf of the Company with the requisite level of disinterestedness and independence,” states the lawsuit.
In specific, the lawsuit is concerned with Magic: The Gathering, which is made by Hasbro subsidiary Wizards of the Coast. In the complaint, it's pointed out that the collectible card game is Hasbro's "most important line of products" and that it is "a popular card game which notably features rare cards highly sought after by collectors...[and] such cards may fetch upwards of thousands of dollars on the secondary market."
As stated in the lawsuit: "“Given the nature of Magic’s secondary market, the rate at which new Magic card sets are printed and sold directly impacts the value of existing Magic cards to collectors. As such, the overprinting of new Magic sets would reduce the value of existing Magic sets. Although analysts and investors consistently inquired as to whether the Company was in fact overprinting Magic sets, the Individual Defendants repeatedly denied such speculation.”
The suit also references a 2022 Bank of America report that found that Hasbro was "overproducing" Magic: The Gathering products "which have propped up Hasbro’s recent results but are destroying the long-term value of the brand.”
The 76-page complaint was filed in the U.S District Court of Rhode Island on Wednesday, January 21.
Hasbro is also under investigation by the former Attorney General of Louisiana, Charles C. Foti, Jr., Esq., who is now a partner at the law firm of Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC. The law firm is also looking into whether Hasbro's officers and/or directors breached their fiduciary duties to its shareholders or otherwise violated state or federal laws.
Hasbro is scheduled to release the company’s fourth quarter and full year financial results before the market open on Tuesday, February 10, 2026.
