Pricewaterhouse to Settle Investor Suit

PricewaterhouseCoopers agreed to pay $17.5 million to settle a class-action lawsuit brought by investors over the accounting firm’s audits of Homestore.com Inc. in 2000 and 2001.

PricewaterhouseCoopers didn’t admit wrongdoing as part of the preliminary settlement, the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, the lead plaintiff, said Thursday.

The teachers’ group, the third-largest U.S. pension fund, sued PricewaterhouseCoopers, Homestore.com, now called Homestore, and some of the company’s former executives in 2002. It accused them of falsifying financial statements and engaging in accounting irregularities to meet Wall Street expectations.

PricewaterhouseCoopers had no immediate comment.

Homestore, the largest online company for real estate listings, in August 2003 agreed to settle the class-action suit for about $93 million in cash and stock.

The only defendants left are Stuart Wolff, Homestore’s former chairman, and Peter Tafeen, its former head of business affairs, said Sherry Reser, a spokeswoman for the pension fund.

Separately from the class-action lawsuit, Wolf and Tafeen have been indicted in Los Angeles for conspiring to violate securities law, insider trading, creating false books and records and lying to the company’s accountants. Both men have denied wrongdoing.