Libel and Stock Manipulation – Excess of $5,000,000 Settlement

Acting as local counsel, our litigation counseling and corporate litigation team worked in tandem with a national plaintiff’s litigation firm in representing online retailer Overstock.com. This case entailed a Marin County Superior Court action against a hedge fund and “independent” research firm which orchestrated a wide-scale predatory campaign of knowingly distributing false, and covertly biased, written reports about Overstock.com in order to disparage Overstock and enrich themselves through shorting Overstock’s stock.

The lawsuit alleged that the content of the research firm’s reports about Overstock were not the result of objective analysis, but that the research firm was being actively influenced and fed information by the hedge fund to create reports which would result in huge financial benefits from the inevitable harm to our client, Overstock.

Working with nationally renowned stock manipulation experts and counsel in numerous states, the litigation team secured settlements against the independent research firm and a $5,000,000 settlement against the hedge fund.