Cooley has secured the dismissal of two consolidated securities class actions filed against Millennial Media and others in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland, Millennial Media is one of the largest independent mobile advertising companies in the United States. In October 2014, two class action lawsuits were filed in the Southern District of New York alleging violations of the federal securities laws against Millennial Media, certain of its current and former executive officers and directors and large shareholders, and seven underwriters associated with the Company's $152 million initial public offering in March 2012, and its $163 million secondary offering in October 2012. In the suits, The suits maintained, among other things, that Millennial Media and other defendants engaged in a fraudulent scheme to artificially inflate the price of the company's common stock by making false and misleading statements to investors. The suits sought unspecified damages on behalf of a purported class of purchasers of the company's common stock during the period from March 28, 2012 through August 11, 2014. Cooley was retained to represent Millennial Media and the individual defendants.
Prior to the submission of motions to dismiss, Cooley uncovered information that cast substantial doubt on whether statements attributed in plaintiffs' complaint to certain "confidential witnesses" actually were made by those witnesses. Plaintiffs eventually voluntarily dismissed without prejudice the consolidated class actions in their entirety, and the court issued an order addressing the confidential witness issues. Neither plaintiffs nor their counsel received any payment or other relief in connection with the dismissal.
The Washington, DC-based Cooley team was led by securities litigation partner Lyle Roberts and included special counsel George Anhang and associates Kate Brubacher, Rebecca Welsh, and Rebecca Givner-Forbes.
