Court Grants Final Approval of $65 Million Snap, Inc. Securities Class Action Settlement
On April 23, 2026, the United States District Court for the Central District of California, the Honorable George H. Wu presiding, granted final approval of a $65 million class action settlement in Kellie Black v. Snap, Inc., et al., Case No. CV 21-8892-GW-RAOx (C.D. Cal.). The Court adopted its tentative ruling issued the prior day, granting Lead Plaintiff Oklahoma Firefighters Pension & Retirement System’s motions for final approval of the settlement and for an award of attorneys’ fees and reimbursement of litigation expenses. The settlement resolves claims brought on behalf of all persons who purchased or otherwise acquired Snap publicly traded securities or call options, or sold Snap put options, between February 5, 2021 and October 21, 2021. Lead Plaintiff alleged that Snap, its CEO Evan Spiegel, and Chief Business Officer Jeremi Gorman violated Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 by making materially false and misleading statements about Snap’s preparedness for Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (“ATT”) privacy changes, which posed a significant threat to Snap’s advertising-dependent business. In particular, on April 22, 2021, Gorman had reassured investors that a “majority” of Snap’s direct response advertisers had “successfully implemented” Apple’s SKAdNetwork (“SKAN”) measurement solution, suggesting Snap was uniquely insulated from the impact of ATT. When Snap announced on October 21, 2021, that it had missed the lower end of its third-quarter revenue guidance—directly attributing these results to “headwinds” from ATT—the Company’s stock price plummeted approximately 26%, wiping out roughly $27 billion in market capitalization.
The litigation spanned more than four years and followed a protracted procedural path. The action was initially filed on November 11, 2021, and after the Court consolidated related cases and appointed Oklahoma Fire as Lead Plaintiff, Lead Plaintiff filed consecutive amended complaints. Defendants moved to dismiss twice, with the Court granting dismissal of the second and third amended complaints, reducing the case to a single alleged misstatement. Lead Counsel made a strategic decision to appeal rather than amend further, and on December 20, 2024, the Ninth Circuit reversed the dismissal, finding that Lead Plaintiff had adequately alleged scienter and the falsity of the April 22, 2021 statement. The parties then engaged in extensive discovery, with Lead Counsel reviewing approximately 63,000 pages of documents, defending and preparing for multiple depositions, and consulting with experts on advertising technology, loss causation, and damages. Lead Plaintiff also moved for class certification in May 2025. In September 2025, the parties participated in a full-day mediation session before former U.S. District Court Judge Layn R. Phillips and Seth Aronson, during which the mediators recommended a resolution of $65 million, which the parties accepted.
In granting final approval, the Court found the settlement to be “fair, reasonable and adequate” after analyzing the factors set forth in Rule 23(e)(2) and the Ninth Circuit’s Churchill framework. The Court noted that the $65 million recovery represented substantially more than the median settlement amount for securities class actions in the Ninth Circuit from 2015 to 2024—a favorable outcome given the substantial risks of continued litigation. The Court further found no signs of collusion, confirmed that notice to the class was satisfactory—with over 244,000 notices disseminated and zero objections received—and observed that the overwhelmingly positive class reaction was “particularly meaningful” given that approximately 70% of Snap’s shares were held by sophisticated institutional investors. The Court concluded that “[t]he favorable result obtained for members of the Settlement Class is the product of [Saxena White’s] expertise, experience, and diligence in pursuing this litigation.”
