Oracle faces a lawsuit by a group of shareholders accusing execs of lying about the company's financials.

The class-action lawsuit has been filed by New York lawyers Schoengold & Sporn in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. It affects investors who bought Oracle stock between December 15 2000 and March 1 2001.

The suit alleges that Oracle big cheeses violated federal securities laws, including "omitting material information and disseminating materially false and misleading statements" in company announcements and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings.

A representative of Schoengold & Sporn today declined to reveal the amount of damages the lawyers want to squeeze out of Oracle, or how many shareholders the suit is representing.

Anyone who bought shares in the allotted time can add their name to the case against the US software giant within 60 days of March 9.

This is not the first suit filed against Oracle this month on behalf of unhappy shareholders. San Diego lawyers Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach have also filed a suit in US District Court in San Francisco against the company and its CEO Larry Ellison. It accuses Ellison of insider trading, with claims that the company exaggerated sales expectations and the promise of its 11i software suite. ®

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