Simpson Thacher & Bartlett has dealt a speedy defeat to a $124 million fraud case targeting Twitter Inc. over its November 2013 initial public offering.
Two asset management firms—Precedo Capital Group Inc. and Continental Advisors SA—claimed in an October 2013 complaint that Twitter bamboozled them into creating an artificial market for its private shares, thereby making it easier for Twitter to justify its $10 billion valuation. But U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin in Manhattan tossed the case on Monday, concluding that even if the financial firms were duped into propping up Twitter, the misrepresentations at the heart of their case were made by a third party called GSV Asset Management Inc. that wasn’t acting at Twitter’s behest.
