Sydney, June 26, 2026, 05:04 (AEST)
- Fortescue slipped 9.03% over eight sessions in a row in the red
- Drop is 0.07 percentage point from the ASX materials sector fall
- Shares fell Thursday but held up better than the sector after news broke about the lawsuit
Fortescue Ltd (ASX:FMG) was still halted ahead of Friday’s session, after dropping 1.61% to A$18.94 at Thursday’s close. That was the eighth day down in a row. Shares have slid from A$20.82 since June 15. With 3.08 billion shares out, the A$1.88 move wiped roughly A$5.8 billion off its equity value.
The S&P/ASX 200 Materials index dropped 8.96% over the period. That was just a 0.07 percentage point gap. Fortescue shed 1.61% on Thursday, holding up better than the sector’s 2.28% slide.
The S&P/ASX 200 dropped 1.85% from June 15 through Thursday. Fortescue trailed, underperforming the index by 7.18 percentage points. That gap suggests mining was the big drag in the recent eight-day selloff. There wasn’t an obvious legal discount in Thursday’s trading, but it’s tough to pin price action to the lawsuit.
ASX 200 dropped for the sixth session, with IG market analyst Tony Sycamore saying, “today’s selling pressure in the ASX 200 was driven by two profit warnings and a renewed slide in key commodity prices.” Sycamore also pointed to a stronger U.S. dollar and the hawkish Federal Reserve meeting as reasons for the weakness. IG
JGA Saddler launched a Federal Court class action Thursday, alleging Fortescue didn’t shield women at Australian sites from sex discrimination, harassment, and a hostile environment from Feb. 1, 2006 to Dec. 5, 2025. The public notice calls for compensation for thousands of women. It doesn’t specify a damages figure.
Fortescue saw 22 sexual-harassment cases reported to Western Australia’s mines safety regulator for fiscal 2025, a drop of 27% from the previous year. That was the only decrease among the three miners reviewed. The law firm said there were 45 testimonials, Reuters said.
Fortescue’s metals and operations CEO Dino Otranto told ABC, “These are extremely serious allegations and Fortescue takes them very seriously.” The company said it has poured $300 million into security at its sites, adding new deadlocks and CCTV upgrades. ABC News
Fortescue ended down, but didn’t slip as much as the other two major iron ore names. BHP Group Ltd (ASX:BHP) dropped 1.65% Thursday. Rio Tinto Ltd (ASX:RIO) gave up 2.26%. Fortescue’s closing price did not show any clear peer-relative legal hit.
The 62% iron ore benchmark sat at US$100.52 a tonne on June 24, falling 8% for the month. Shares of Fortescue dropped 13.71% in four weeks—outpacing the iron ore decline by 5.71 percentage points.
Fortescue will post June-quarter production numbers on July 31. The miner kept its fiscal 2026 shipment outlook at 195 million to 205 million tonnes. Guidance for Iron Bridge was cut in April to between 9 million and 10 million tonnes. The company’s full-year results come out Aug. 24.
