TORONTO - A group of shareholders announced Monday a class action lawsuit against Kinross Gold Corp. (TSX:K) and several of its senior officers, alleging misrepresentation involving a mine in Mauritania and seeking $4 billion in damages.

The plaintiffs are the trustees of the Musicians' Pension Fund of Canada and have begun the action on behalf of all investors who purchased Kinross shares from Feb. 16, 2011, through January 16, 2012 on the Toronto Stock Exchange or other secondary market in Canada.

The plaintiffs, whose allegations have not been proven in court, contend there were misrepresentations in Kinross's public disclosure relating to its Tasiast mine in Africa. Kinross had acquired the Tasiast mine in September 2010 as part of its acquisition of Red Back Mining Inc..

The alleged misrepresentations include statements relating to the quantity and quality of gold ore at the Tasiast mine and the results of Kinross' drilling program at the mine.

"Shareholders have lost billions of dollars as a result of management's repeated assurances that the mine in Mauritania was a viable mine with substantial reserves," said Kirk Baert, a partner with Koskie Minsky LLP in Toronto.

"Now they want to write down $2.49 billion in goodwill just 18 months after the purchase of the mine. Something is very wrong here."

Kinross acquired full ownership of the Tasiast open-pit gold mine in 2010 after buying Red Back Mining Inc. for $7.1 billion in a share swap transaction.

It announced the writedown in February, saying it reflected the company's estimate of what the project is now worth as it moves to expand the mine over the next few years.

However, Kinross president and CEO Tye Burt struck a optimistic note at the time concerning the mine, saying the company would focus on that project ahead of others in the pipeline.

"Tasiast gets first call on the capital given its high returns,'' Burt said in an interview.