Law firms sue PNC, National City over PNC's NCB purchase

WILMINGTON, DE -- The law firms of Rigrodsky & Long, of Wilmington, Delaware and Dreier LLP, of New York City, have filed a class-action lawsuit against National City Corp., its board of directors and PNC Financial Services Group over PNC's purchase of National City.

The lawsuit, filed in Delaware, essentially accuses the individual board members of National City of breaching their fiduciary duties by selling the Cleveland bank without ensuring shareholders would be taken care of.

The class-action lawsuit wants the deal to be stopped.

The complaint says that the 761 million publicly held shares of National City are held by hundreds of individuals and entities nationwide.

It adds that the acquisition "represents an opportunistic attempt to take advantage of National City's flagging stock price and is financially unfair."

It states that the $2.23 per share purchase price is an 18.9 percent discount from the closing price of $2.75 on Oct. 23, the day before the deal was announced, and is "far below" levels the share price had been at in recent weeks.