Groupon sued by shareholder over 'misleading' statements The company, which is based in Chicago, is alleged to have concealed internal weaknesses in its financial controls and overtstated its resistance to competition, according to the legal claim filed in Chicago by Fan Zhang, who says he spent more than $60,000 (£38,000) buying shares in Groupon in February. Sold for $20 a piece at the $12bn initial public offering last autumn, Groupon shares were down 0.6pc to $14.93 in early afternoon trading in New York. The legal action against the company, which takes a cut of the online deals that local businesses offer its subscribers, follows its admission on Friday that it had discovered a "material weakness" in its internal controls over financial reporting. That forced Groupon to lower its operating income by $30m and its revenue by $14.3m for the final quarter of 2011 because it had to set aside more money to cover customer refunds. The company insisted this week that it remains "confident in the fundamentals of our business, as our performance continues to highlight the value that we provide to customers and merchants." Groupon did not make any changes to its guidance for the first three months of this year. Groupon declined to comment on the lawsuit.