Cooley Secures Win for Sequenom Board in Securities Class Action

San Diego – September 12, 2023 – Cooley represented the former board of directors of Sequenom, a molecular diagnostics company, in a nearly seven-year-long securities class action brought by former investors in the company. Lawyers Koji Fukumura, Peter Adams, Sarah Lightdale, Barrett Anderson and Dylan Scott led the Cooley team advising the board.

In July 2016, the Sequenom board of directors recommended that its investors to agree to LabCorp’s acquisition of Sequenom for $371 million, representing a 185% premium over the company’s then-current stock price. Approximately 69% of investors tendered their shares, and the acquisition concluded on September 7, 2016. The plaintiff investors then filed suit, alleging that the acquisition violated Section 14(e) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Cooley’s lawyers filed a motion to dismiss, arguing among other things that the investors’ consolidated amended class action complaint failed to adequately allege that the Sequenom board of directors’ recommendation was objectively and subjectively false, or that it contained misleading omissions. The motion also contended that the plaintiffs’ allegations did not sufficiently plead that the investors suffered economic loss as a result of the acquisition.

After nearly five years and several rounds of supplemental briefing due to intervening changes in the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit’s interpretation of Section 14(e), US District Judge John A. Houston granted the Sequenom board of directors’ motion to dismiss on July 27, 2023. The court allowed the plaintiffs to file an amended complaint by September 11, but on September 7, the plaintiffs instead filed a voluntary notice of dismissal of the case without prejudice.

The case is Sequenom Inc. Stockholder Litigation before the US District Court for the Southern District of California (16-cv-02054-JAH-DDL).

The victory also earned the Cooley team a Litigator of the Week accolade in The American Lawyer’s Litigation Daily column.

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