Volta Sued Over SPAC Deal as $169 Million Shell Sale Is Approved

An investor sued Volta Inc. on Wednesday—the same day shareholders approved its $169 million sale to Shell Plc—over concerns that insiders may have engineered an earlier blank-check deal to give themselves a windfall at everyone else’s expense.

The lawsuit seeks internal files from Volta to investigate allegations that the lopsided structure of its 2021 merger with Tortoise Acquisition Corp. II, a “special purpose acquisition company,” drove the deal’s backers to dupe public investors into participating. The claims echo a familiar refrain at the heart of dozens of other similar cases brought in recent years.

The transaction’s sponsors “were incentivized ...