White Collar and Government Investigations partner Michael Grudberg is featured in Law 360’s article “Investors Denied Cert. Rethink In Twitter Stock Fraudster Suit.” The article discusses the court’s denial of reconsideration regarding plaintiffs’ rejected bid for class certification in a suit against Gregory W. Gray, a convicted promoter of limited partnership offerings of pre-IPO Twitter securities, who was sued by the SEC and served a prison sentence after pleading guilty to securities fraud and lying to the regulator.

The suit claims the defendants defrauded at least 140 investors who forked over $20 million because they believed Gray would buy up privately held shares of Twitter Inc. and Uber Technologies Inc.

Michael represents Gregory P. Edwards, an investor and partner in Gray’s company, Archipel Capital. He notes that Edwards, who sunk $200,000 of his own money into Gray's partnerships, hasn't been accused of wrongdoing by the SEC or prosecutors, and was allowed by the agency to participate as a victim in a related case.

Despite finding that several of their other claims do focus on common issues over individualized ones, all the claims are "inextricably tied" to the fraud allegations, which ultimately defeats their certification bid. The judge also said that a new argument suggesting that class wide reliance could have been proven through "common evidence" wasn't included in their original certification bid.

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