IBM on Friday said that a lawsuit alleging that the company was complicit in the NSA snooping program known as "Prism" is "a wild conspiracy theory." "IBM's cooperation with a National Security Agency surveillance program caused sales in China to "abruptly halt" and the company's stock price to decline, a shareholder lawsuit claims.

"This lawsuit seeks to confuse IBM's support for a U.S. cybersecurity legislative proposal -- which has yet to be enacted -- with the completely unrelated NSA surveillance program called PRISM," IBM's general counsel, Robert Weber, said in a statement Friday. "Even a cursory reading of the legislative proposal, known as CISPA, makes clear that it has nothing to do with the recently disclosed NSA surveillance program."

IBM said it would vigorously fight the "baseless" lawsuit.

The suit was filed Thursday in Manhattan federal court by the Louisiana Sheriffs' Pension and Relief Fund. The complaint accused IBM of defrauding investors by concealing the company's sales decline in China after Edward Snowden leaked information that the company was cooperating with the NSA. IBM lobbied in favor of a bill that would allow it to share customers' personal data, including data from customers in China, with the NSA, according to the complaint.