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The Bed Bath & Beyond Chief Financial Officer Gustavo Arnal, who was found dead on Friday after falling from the 18th floor of a New York City apartment building, recently was named in a lawsuit accusing him of fraud.
The incident occurred less than two weeks after the executive, 52, was named in a federal class-action lawsuit on allegations of federal securities fraud, insider trading, and breach of fiduciary duty, according to court documents.
His death also comes just days after Bed Bath & Beyond announced it is shuttering 150 stores and slashing 20% of its corporate staff.
Arnal is cited in the suit along with activist investor and GameStop chairman Ryan Cohen, who the lawsuit claims collaborated with the CFO in a “fraudulent scheme to artificially inflate the price of Bed Bath & Beyond’s publicly traded stock.”
The suit, filed in United States District Court for the District of Columbia on August 23, claims that Cohen and Arnal provided “materially false statements regarding the financial condition and holding situation” of Bed Bath & Beyond for their financial benefit.
