Securities Class Action News: Filings, Settlements, and SEC Pullback

The latest securities class action news for 2025 and early 2026: fewer new cases are being filed, but each one is bigger, and the pipeline of settlements has grown accordingly. Federal filings dropped to 207 in 2025 from 226 in 2024, yet Disclosure Dollar Loss hit an all-time record of $694 billion and Maximum Dollar Loss climbed 75% to $2,862 billion.¹ At the same time, the SEC narrowed its enforcement focus under Chairman Paul Atkins, the Supreme Court resolved a long-running split over disgorgement, and three closely watched class-certification appeals are moving through the circuits.

Filings Are Down but Much Larger

The 207 filings in 2025 were the first annual decline in two years and represented roughly 3.8% of companies listed on U.S. exchanges.² Excluding merger suits, 201 “core” cases were filed, down from 221.¹ Much of the drop came from SPAC and COVID-19 cases, which fell to five and three filings respectively.

What’s left is larger. Thirty-six “mega filings” drove 89% of total Maximum Dollar Loss and 81% of Disclosure Dollar Loss. Stanford Law Professor Joseph Grundfest, a former SEC commissioner, said the spike in those metrics “suggests large future settlement values.”¹

Healthcare and technology companies accounted for 57% of filings, with life sciences alone drawing 47 complaints, more than 22% of the total.²³ The Second, Third, and Ninth Circuits took 71% of cases, with Third Circuit filings tripling in the first half of the year on the strength of pharmaceutical and biotech suits.⁴ Missed earnings guidance was the most common allegation at 43% of filings, a five-year high, while regulatory-related claims dropped to a five-year low of 13%.

AI and Crypto Cases

Seventeen AI-related securities class actions were filed in 2025, 8% of all new cases, with 12 of them in the first half of the year.² Courts have turned skeptical of these claims. Among AI cases filed between January 2023 and June 2025, every decided motion to dismiss succeeded in full or in part. For the 2023 cohort, 57% of AI cases were dismissed compared to 46% for non-AI cases.⁵ Judges have required plaintiffs to point to specific, contemporaneous evidence that a company’s technology lacked claimed capabilities, not vague allegations about AI performance.⁶

Crypto filings jumped 75% to 14 cases.² Plaintiffs are increasingly bringing unregistered-securities claims rather than fraud theories, which do not require proof of intentional deception and avoid some class-certification obstacles. Two district courts granted certification on that basis in 2025.⁷ Private suits have expanded as the SEC has retreated: Chairman Atkins launched “Project Crypto” in July 2025, stating publicly that “most crypto assets are not securities.”⁸

SPAC-related filings continued their decline, falling to 10 in 2025 from a 2021 peak of 33.⁹ The action has shifted to resolution: Alta Mesa settled for $126.3 million during the third week of a jury trial in December 2024, reportedly the largest SPAC securities fraud recovery ever, and Grab Holdings settled for $80 million.¹⁰

Settlements and Dismissals

Courts resolved 234 securities class actions in 2025, up 11%, split between 155 dismissals and 79 settlements.²

Settlement Values

Aggregate settlement value totaled $2.9 billion, a 25% decline from the inflation-adjusted 2024 figure of $3.9 billion. The median settlement, however, climbed 21% to $17 million, a ten-year high, and the average was $40 million.²¹¹ Plaintiffs’ fees and expenses came to $797 million, about 27% of the settlement pool.

The year’s two largest approved settlements were Alibaba Group Holdings at $433.5 million, resolving claims that the company misled investors about exclusivity practices and the planned IPO of Ant Group,¹² and General Electric at $362.5 million, resolving claims that GE concealed cash-flow weakness in its power unit through intercompany factoring.¹³ Eight mega settlements of $100 million or more were approved during the year, totaling over $1.6 billion.¹⁴

Big 2026 Settlements Already Moving

The first quarter of 2026 produced 41 new settlements totaling $2.4 billion.¹⁵¹⁶¹⁷

Other large early-2026 settlements include Rivian Automotive at $250 million, Celgene at $239 million, Fidelity National Information Services at $210 million, and Acadia Healthcare at $179 million.¹⁵ The Acadia case, alleging misrepresentations about patient care and staffing, settled on the eve of trial after more than seven years.¹⁸

Dismissal Rates Keep Rising

Defendants secured 139 dismissals of standard cases in 2025, a record and a 32% jump from 105 the prior year.² Between 2016 and 2025, motions to dismiss were filed in 96% of resolved cases, and judges granted 62% of them. The median time from first complaint to dismissal shortened to 1.6 years from 1.9 years in 2024.⁵

SEC Enforcement Pulls Back

The SEC filed 313 standalone enforcement actions in fiscal year 2025, down 27% from the prior year and its lowest total in a decade. Monetary settlements fell 45% to $808 million. The reported $17.9 billion in total monetary relief was skewed by $14.9 billion attributed to the Stanford International Bank Ponzi scheme matter.¹⁹

Chairman Atkins has described the approach as a “new day” focused on traditional fraud, retail investor protection, and individual accountability rather than volume or “novel legal theories.” In the first half of fiscal year 2026, the agency brought 60 standalone actions, 80% of which charged at least one individual.²⁰ The SEC also dismissed seven previously filed crypto enforcement actions and closed investigations into Coinbase, Binance, Gemini, Uniswap, and others.¹⁹ A Cross-Border Task Force was created in September 2025 to pursue foreign-issuer fraud, and in May 2026 the SEC charged 21 individuals in a wide-reaching insider trading scheme. The Enforcement Division lost 18% of its workforce during fiscal year 2025.

Supreme Court and Appellate Rulings

The Supreme Court issued no securities opinions during its 2025 term and dismissed previously granted appeals in cases against Facebook and NVIDIA.²¹ The current term has been more active.

Disgorgement Without Investor Loss

On June 4, 2026, the Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the Ninth Circuit in Sripetch v. SEC, holding that the SEC need not show investors suffered a financial loss to obtain disgorgement. Justice Gorsuch wrote that “traditional equitable principles do not require a showing of pecuniary loss to justify a disgorgement award,” and that the remedy is aimed at stripping wrongdoers of their profits rather than compensating victims. The decision resolved a split between the First and Ninth Circuits, which did not require pecuniary harm, and the Second Circuit, which did. Justice Thomas filed a concurrence suggesting future cases should treat disgorgement as a legal rather than equitable remedy, which would trigger the Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial.²²

Class Certification Fights at Boeing and Cassava

In In re Boeing Company Securities Litigation, the Fourth Circuit is considering whether plaintiffs satisfied the Supreme Court’s 2013 Comcast standard requiring proof that damages can be measured classwide. The case stems from shareholder claims that Boeing made misleading safety statements after the 2018–2019 737 MAX crashes. Boeing argues that the plaintiffs’ damages expert admitted his methodology was a “template” used across cases rather than specific to Boeing.²³²⁴

In In re Cassava Sciences Securities Litigation, the Fifth Circuit granted leave to hear whether the fraud-on-the-market presumption from Basic Inc. v. Levinson applies to “meme stocks” whose prices may be driven by internet hype rather than value-relevant information. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce filed an amicus brief arguing the district court treated market-efficiency analysis as a mechanical “check-the-box” exercise and declined to consider evidence that the stock was “information-agnostic.”²⁵ The case is pending.

Zillow Heads Toward the Supreme Court

In Jaeger v. Zillow Group, the Ninth Circuit affirmed class certification in September 2025 in a case alleging Zillow misrepresented the pricing model of its home-flipping business, then denied rehearing en banc in January 2026.²⁶ Zillow sought a 60-day extension to file a certiorari petition, with a deadline of June 5, 2026.²⁷ The case implicates a split over the Goldman Sachs price-impact test: the Second Circuit requires a specific connection between a corrective disclosure and the alleged misrepresentation, while the Ninth Circuit has applied a more lenient standard.²¹

Institutional Investors Are Opting Out

Large institutional investors increasingly skip class settlements and pursue direct actions, which complicates deal economics for defendants. Cornerstone Research data show the share of settlements drawing at least one opt-out rose from 2.9% during 1996–2005 to 11.5% during 2019–2022. In the most recent period studied, 29% of settlements above $20 million drew opt-outs, and every settlement above $500 million did.²⁸ Pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, and hedge funds are the most frequent opt-out plaintiffs.²⁹

The VEREIT case shows the stakes: 14 direct actions resolved for $281.4 million, including $90 million from Vanguard funds, roughly 28% of the total class settlement.²⁸ Court rulings have clarified that class actions do not toll the statutes of repose under the Securities Act or Exchange Act, so institutional investors risk losing claims entirely if they wait.³⁰ Defendants have responded with “blow provisions” in settlement agreements that let them renegotiate or terminate a deal if opt-outs exceed a threshold.²⁹

1
Cornerstone Research. Overall Size of Securities Class Action Filings Reached New Heights in 2025
2
NERA Economic Consulting. Recent Trends in Securities Class Action Litigation: 2025 Full-Year Review
3
Dechert LLP. Securities Fraud Class Actions Against U.S. Life Sciences Companies
4
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6
Alston & Bird LLP. Three Trends From AI-Related Class Action Dismissals
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8
Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP. AI and Cryptocurrency-Related Securities Class Action Filings in 2025 H1
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The D&O Diary. Record-Setting Settlements in Two SPAC-Related Securities Suits
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12
Alibaba Class Action Settlement. In Re Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. Securities Litigation Settlement
13
Bloomberg Law. GE $362.5 Million Investor Class Settlement Gets Final Court Nod
14
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15
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16
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17
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18
Bloomberg Law. Acadia’s $179 Million Investor Class Deal Gets Court Sendoff
19
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Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP. Three Securities Litigation Trends to Watch in 2026
22
Supreme Court of the United States. Sripetch v. Securities and Exchange Commission, No. 25-466
23
Reuters. Damages Debate Heats Up in FirstEnergy, Boeing Securities Battles
24
Courthouse News Service. Appellant Brief in Boeing Securities Litigation, Fourth Circuit
25
U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Amicus Brief in In Re Cassava Sciences Inc. Securities Litigation, Fifth Circuit
26
Bloomberg Law. Zillow Investor Class Rehearing Denial Spurs High Court Question
27
Supreme Court of the United States. Zillow v. Jaeger Certiorari Extension Application
28
The D&O Diary. Cornerstone Research: Securities Suit Opt-Outs Increasingly Frequent in Large Complex Cases
29
Stanford Law School. Opt-Out Cases in Securities Class Action Settlements
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Cohen Milstein. New Studies Look at Trends in Opt-Out Cases and Litigation by Mutual Fund Companies