It may be time to add anotherlawsuit to Silicon Valley upstart Theranos’ troubles.
Documents from Arizona’s Attorney General’s office indicate that the state is preparing to sue Elizabeth Holmes’ once-vaunted, now-dwindling blood testing outfit, the Wall Street Journalreports. The specific files are bidding proposals for outside counsel to represent the state in a lawsuit.
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“The purpose of this contract is to retain Outside Counsel to aid the Arizona Attorney General’s Office (the AGO) in commencing legal action against Theranos, Inc. and its closely related subsidiaries for violations of the Arizona Consumer Fraud Act arising out of Theranos Inc.’s long-running scheme of deceptive acts and misrepresentations relating to the capabilities and operation of Theranos blood testing equipment, including but not limited to deceptive acts and misrepresentations made to Arizona consumers in connection with Theranos Wellness Centers in Arizona and California,” states the document.
Theranos operated about 40 “Wellness Centers” where it offered its blood testing services—services that ostensibly used diagnostic tech that Theranos claimed was revolutionary, but thousands of whose results the company had to eventually void for inaccuracies. The firm eventually decided to shut down its Wellness Centers and slash its workforce nearly in half in order to concentrate on a different technology called the “miniLab.”
Theranos is already facing a consumer class action suit over the inaccurate diagnostic results; a breach of contract suit by former partner Walgreens (WBA); and an investor class action alleging “continuous lies from the company’s CEO.”
Theranos told Fortune that is has “no comment” on the potential suit, and emphasized that it denies the allegations in the various other lawsuits currently under way.
