- Trinity Industries (TRN -7.5%) plunges following a Bloomberg report that its ET-Plus guardrail system is involved in a federal criminal investigation.
- The news comes as TRN had seemed ready to move forward after more than a year of scrutiny in courts and from states over the performance of ET-Plus, which is meant to reduce the impact of cars that crash headlong into guardrails; last month, the FHA said ET-Plus passed a series of crash tests meant to certify its safety.
- According to the report, federal investigators are interviewing potential witnesses about TRN’s relationship with the FHA, and investigators from a public corruption and special prosecutions unit of the Justice Department are said to have subpoenaed documents from court battles involving ET-Plus on behalf of a grand jury.
- TRN says it has not been contacted by federal officials.