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Twitter, Inc. Securities Litigation

The Class Action Case Files


Portfolio monitoring and asset recovery of growing global securities class actions can be daunting.
Broadridge can help simplify the complex.

Just the Facts

Twitter and two former senior executives have struck a $809.5 million settlement to resolve allegations that the company misrepresented its monthly active user growth throughout 2015. This settlement represents 24% - 30% of estimated recoverable damages, which is up to nine times the median recovery, on a percentage basis, when compared to similarly sized settlements. The $809.5 million settlement is also one of the largest securities class action settlements of all time, but interestingly, isn’t the largest settlement in 2022. That accolade belongs to the €1.4 billion global Steinhoff International settlement.

Case Name In re Twitter, Inc. Securities Litigation
(4:16-cv-05314)
Class Period February 6, 2015 - July 28, 2015
Settlement Amount $809,500,000
Security Twitter common stock (TWTR; 90184L102; US90184L1026; BFLR866)
Court United States District Court for the
Northern District of California
Class Counsel Motley Rice LLC and
Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP
Class Representatives KBC Asset Management NV and
National Elevator Industry Pension Fund
Initial Complaint Filed September 16, 2016
Preliminary Approval August 5, 2022
Final Approval Hearing November 17, 2022
Claim Filing Deadline November 23, 2022

Twitter, Inc. is a communications company based in San Francisco, California. In 2006, the company launched their primary product Twitter, a social networking platform that allows users to consume, create, distribute, and discover content. To generate revenue, Twitter sells ad space to global advertisers that aim to reach a large and growing user base. Thus, the company and analysts have focused closely on metrics measuring total users and, equally as important, the level of engagement of such users.

Plaintiffs allege that, in 2015, Twitter made misrepresentations and omissions about the company’s prospects for increasing user growth and engagement including that Twitter knowingly made inaccurate public statements regarding these metrics and failed to disclose that the company’s actual user growth was much slower. As a result, Twitter’s stock dropped to under $26 per share, down from $50 per share in early 2015.

Investors who purchased or acquired Twitter, Inc. common stock between February 6, 2015 and July 28, 2015 have until November 23, 2022 to file their claim.

Case Challenges

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RECOGNIZED LOSS AMOUNTS INVOLVED A “DOWN TO THE MINUTE” CALCULATION

In order to potentially have a recognized loss under the court-approved Plan of Allocation, class members that purchased Twitter common stock prior to the first corrective disclosure, which occurred on April 28, 2015, must have held those shares until at least 3:07 p.m. EDT on April 28, 2015. If the class member sold their shares prior to 3:07 p.m. then their recognized loss would be $0.00.

IMPACT: Complicated recognized loss calculations increase the amount of time and expertise necessary to accurately calculate each claimant’s recognized loss amount, especially when bespoke processes may be required to identify eligible transactions properly and completely to maximize recovery. This challenge leads to a more complicated and involved review and quality assurance process to confirm the accuracy and completeness of the Administrator’s findings and to ensure an accurate recovery.

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WIDELY HELD SECURITY

Since Twitter’s November 2013 IPO, it has consistently ranked among the top recognized tech stocks.

IMPACT: When dealing with widely held securities, portfolio monitoring is made more complicated by the size of the searches and resulting data exports. Additionally, the time required to prepare and file claims can increase exponentially, and significant quality assurance measures may be needed to ensure accuracy and completeness of the files before they can even be filed.

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OLD CLASS PERIOD

The class period began on February 6, 2015.

IMPACT: Financial institutions and individuals typically keep copies of statements, broker confirmations and house data relating to their accounts for approximately seven years which is right when this class period begins. Consequently, it may be difficult for class members to (a) provide transaction information beyond seven years, and (b) provide all required supporting documentation. As a result, class members may miss eligible transactions, negatively impacting their potential recognized loss. However, since this case was originally filed in 2016, early preparation and data warehousing would put the class member in good standing.

Each year billions of dollars are being left on the table.

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