Baidu defeats U.S. shareholder lawsuit over China internet law compliance

A U.S. judge has dismissed a lawsuit accusing Baidu Inc of defrauding shareholders about its ability to comply with Chinese regulations governing internet content.

In a Wednesday night decision, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh rejected claims in the proposed class action that 12 statements that Baidu made from March 2019 to March 2020 were false and misleading and inflated the Beijing-based company’s share price.

The statements included that the world’s largest search engine other than Alphabet Inc’s Google had “cleaned up” harmful or questionable content such as material related to drugs, gambling and pornography, giving users more confidence and potentially boosting online traffic and revenue.