Practice: Securities Fraud
Email: nporritt@zlk.com
Nicholas I. Porritt prosecutes securities class actions, shareholder class actions, derivative actions, and mergers and acquisitions litigation. He has extensive experience representing plaintiffs and defendants in a wide variety of complex commercial litigation, including civil fraud, breach of contract, and professional malpractice, as well as defending SEC investigations and enforcement actions. Mr. Porritt has helped recover hundreds of millions of dollars on behalf of shareholders. He was one of the Lead Counsel in In re Google Inc. Class C Shareholder Litigation, C.A. No. 7469-CS (Del. Ch. 2012) that resulted in a payment of $522 million to shareholders and overall benefit of over $3 billion to Google’s minority shareholders. He was one of the lead counsel in Chen v. Howard-Anderson, No. 5878-VCL (Del. Ch. Jan. 24, 2011) that settled during trial resulting in a $35 million payment to the former shareholders of Occam Networks, Inc., one of the largest quasi-appraisal recoveries for shareholders. Amongst other cases, he is currently lead counsel in In re Tesla, Inc. Securities Litigation, No. 3:18-cv-04865-EMC(N.D. Cal.), representing Tesla investors who were harmed by Elon Musk’s “funding secured” tweet from August 7, 2018 as well as lead counsel in Ford v. TD Ameritrade Holding Corp., No. 14-cv-396 (D. Neb.), representing TD Ameritrade customers harmed by its improper routing of their orders. Both cases involve over $1 billion in estimated damages.
Mr. Porritt was selected by Lawdragon as one of the 500 leading plaintiff lawyers in financial litigation and was selected to the 2020 DC Super Lawyers list published by Thomson Reuters.
Mr. Porritt speaks frequently on current topics relating to securities laws and derivative actions, including presentations on behalf of the Council for Institutional Investors, Nasdaq, and the Practising Law Institute. He currently serves as co-chair of the American Bar Association Sub-Committee on Derivative Actions.
Before joining the Firm, Mr. Porritt practiced as a partner at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP and prior to that was a partner at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati PC.
Education
- University of Chicago Law School, J.D., (1996), with honors
- University of Chicago Law School, LL.M., (1993)
- Victoria University of Wellington, LL.B. (Hons.) (1990), with First Class Honors, Senior Scholarship
Admissions
- New York (1997)
- District of Columbia (1998)
- United States District Court for the District of Columbia (1999)
- United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (2004)
- United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (2004)
- United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (2006)
- United States Supreme Court (2006)
- United States District Court for the District of Maryland (2007)
- United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (2012)
- United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (2014)
- United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (2015)
- United States District Court for the District of Colorado (2015)
- United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit (2016)
- United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit (2017)
- United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit (2019)
Publications
- “Current Trends in Securities Litigation: How Companies and Counsel Should Respond,” Inside the Minds Recent Developments in Securities Law (Aspatore Press 2010)
Notable Cases
- In re Tesla, Inc. Sec. Litig., 2020 WL 1873441 (N.D. Cal.2020)
- In Re Aphria, Inc. Securities Litigation, 2020 WL 5819548 (S.D.N.Y. 2020)
- Voulgaris, v. Array Biopharma Inc., No. 17CV02789KLMCONSOLID, 2020 WL 8367829 (D. Colo.2020)
- In Re Aphria, Inc. Securities Litigation, No. 18 CIV. 11376 (GBD), 2020 WL 5819548 (S.D.N.Y. 2020)
- In re Clovis Oncology, Inc. Deriv. Litig., 2019 WL 4850188 (Del. Ch. 2019)
- Martin v. Altisource Residential Corp., 2019 WL 2762923 (D.V.I. 2019)
- In re Navient Corp. Sec. Litig., 2019 WL 7288881 (D.N.J.2019)
- In re Bridgestone Inv. Corp., 789 Fed. App’x 13 (9th Cir. 2019)
- Klein v. TD Ameritrade Holding Corp., 327 F.R.D. 283 (D. Neb. 2018)
- Beezley v. Fenix Parts, Inc., 2018 WL 3454490 (N.D. Ill. 2018)
- In re PTC Therapeutics Sec. Litig., 2017 WL 3705801 (D.N.J. 2017)
- Zaghian v. Farrell, 675 Fed. Appx. 718, (9th Cir. 2017)
- SEC v. Cuban, 620 F.3d 551 (5th Cir. 2010)
- Cozzarelli v. Inspire Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 549 F.3d 618 (4th Cir. 2008)
- Teachers’ Retirement System of Louisiana v. Hunter, 477 F.3d 162 (4th Cir. 2007)
- In re PTC Therapeutics Sec. Litig., 2017 WL 3705801 (D.N.J. Aug. 28, 2017)
- Gormley magicJack VocalTec Ltd., 220 F. Supp. 3d 510 (S.D.N.Y. 2016)
- Carlton v. Cannon, 184 F. Supp. 3d 428 (S.D. Tex. 2016)
- Zola v. TD Ameritrade, Inc., 172 F. Supp. 3d 1055 (D. Neb. 2016)
- In re Energy Recovery Sec. Litig., 2016 WL 324150 (N.D. Cal. Jan. 27, 2016)
- In re EZCorp Inc. Consulting Agreement Deriv. Litig., 2016 WL 301245 (Del. Ch. Jan. 25, 2016)
- In re Violin Memory Sec. Litig., 2014 WL 5525946 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 31, 2014)
- Garnitschnig v. Horovitz, 48 F. Supp. 3d 820 (D. Md. 2014)
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