San Diego – July 10, 2024 – Cooley secured another win on behalf of IonQ (NYSE: IONQ), a top quantum computing hardware and software company, when a district court issued an order denying the plaintiffs’ attempt to amend their complaint and request that the court reconsider its prior dismissal with prejudice of a consolidated securities fraud class action. Lawyers Koji Fukumura, Ryan Blair, David Mills, Elizabeth Wright, Caitlin Munley, Linh Nguyen, Jessica Taylor and Vivienne Pismarov led the Cooley team representing IonQ.
The plaintiffs filed the case on May 31, 2022, alleging that the IonQ and dMY Technology Group merger in October 2021 misled investors about IonQ’s technology and concealed that a third party was the source of its increased bookings – not cloud-based customers – to keep share prices high and further deceive investors. On September 29, 2023, US District Judge Deborah L. Boardman dismissed the complaint with prejudice, citing the plaintiffs’ failure to state a claim and holding that they could not demonstrate that the analysts who authored the Scorpion Capital report or a former IonQ employee who purportedly gave testimony were reliable sources of information.
Judge Boardman filed an opinion on July 10, 2024, denying the plaintiffs’ motion for reconsideration and leave to file an amended complaint. The opinion noted that the amended complaint still failed to state a claim under the federal securities laws, making the proposed amendment futile.
The case is Michael Leacock v. IonQ Inc., et al. before the US District Court for the District of Maryland (8:22-cv-01306-DLB).
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