A shareholder of beleaguered smartphone maker BlackBerry has filed a lawsuit against the company and its executives, accusing them of misleading investors by issuing false statements about the company’s health and prospects.

In the proposed class action suit, filed by Marvin Pearlstein on Friday in the U. S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan), the petitioner accused BlackBerry and its executives of inflating the company’s stock and issuing false statements about the BlackBerry 10 product line of smartphones to mislead investors.

Pearlstein alleged that BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins and CFO Brian Bidulka were engaged in the alleged plan to deceive investors.

The lawsuit alleges, “In reality, the BlackBerry 10 was not well-received by the market, and the company was forced to write down a nearly $1 billion charge ... and lay off approximately 4,500 employees, totaling approximately 40 percent of its total workforce.”

Adam Emery, a spokesperson for the smartphone maker, turned down requests for a comment on the lawsuit.

Waterloo, Ontario-based BlackBerry, which put itself on the block in August this year, accepted a provisional offer of US$4.7 billion from Fairfax Financial Holdings last month.