Somewhere along the way from small-town cafe to multibillion-dollar company, Keurig Green Mountain Inc. (formerly Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc.) became a magnet for litigation. The courtroom woes are far from over, but the company can at least thank its lawyers at Ropes & Gray for finishing off a securities fraud class action premised on allegations of insider trading by the company’s founder.
In a brief order issued Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a 2012 lawsuit alleging that Keurig Green Mountain duped investors about increased competition from Starbucks Co. in the market for single-serve coffee brewers. Agreeing with U.S. District Judge William Sessions III in Burlington, Vt., the appeals court ruled that plaintiffs counsel at Kahn Swick & Foti couldn’t point to actionable misstatements by Keurig Green Mountain and hadn’t adequately alleged scienter—i.e., knowledge of wrongdoing.
