On April 20th, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York dismissed with prejudice a third amended securities class action complaint against Williams & Connolly client AmTrust Financial Services. The putative plaintiff class accused AmTrust of making false and misleading misstatements about its finances dating back to 2012 that required the company to restate its financials in 2016 after switching auditors. The Court dismissed the plaintiffs’ claims in a lengthy order last fall, but granted leave to amend. Rejecting the plaintiffs’ contention that they had corrected the deficiencies identified in his earlier opinion, Judge Kaplan dismissed the third amended complaint with prejudice on multiple grounds, including that most of the statements at issue were opinions. The ruling thus represented a complete victory for AmTrust.
The team representing AmTrust Financial Services includes Steve Farina, George Borden, Amanda MacDonald, Michaela Wilkes-Klein, and Jay Swanson.
Click here to read Law360’s coverage of the case.