We secured a complete victory for Iris

On Friday, Davis Polk secured a complete dismissal of a putative federal securities class action against its client Iris Energy Limited, a bitcoin mining operations company, and several of its officers and its directors.

The claims had challenged the accuracy of Iris’s disclosures in its November 2021 initial public offering and in several statements made in the months that followed the IPO. The plaintiffs sought to recover for their losses during the broad, market-wide decline in the value of bitcoin in 2022. They alleged that Iris had concealed risks in its IPO documents and other public disclosures, including about loans that Iris had secured to fund data mining equipment powered by renewable energy. The plaintiffs also asserted that Iris overstated its goodwill in its financials.

Davis Polk moved to dismiss the complaint in its entirety, arguing that none of the statements at issue were false or misleading.

On September 27, 2024, Judge Jamel K. Semper of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey granted the motion in a 41-page memorandum opinion and order dismissing the complaint in its entirety. Judge Semper agreed that Iris had no duty to disclose every detail regarding its equipment loan financing and that the plaintiffs had failed to allege anything misleading about Iris’s disclosures. Judge Semper also agreed that, as a matter of law, many of the statements challenged by the plaintiffs were non-actionable opinions and forward-looking statements.

The Davis Polk team included partners Edmund Polubinski and Mari Grace, counsel David B. Toscano and associates Charlotte M. Savino, Paulina Perlin, Elaina Marx, Alyssa Metcalf and Paige Whitaker. Partner Marcel Fausten provided capital markets advice. Members of the Davis Polk team are based in the New York and Washington DC offices.

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