On Friday, a class action lawsuit was filed against Keith Gill, also known as Roaring Kitty, alleging that his wildly popular social media activity drove up the price of GameStop (GME) stock for personal gain. The lawsuit was voluntarily dismissed by the plaintiffs on Monday.
The case, Radev v. Gil was effective. On the court list for one business day — and was withdrawn hours after the court issued a summons to Gill demanding he respond to the complaint within 21 days.
The two-sentence notice from plaintiffs’ attorneys informed the court that they would dismiss the lawsuit without prejudice.
The news broke shortly before markets closed in the US, with GME ending the day at $23.33, down 5% on the day and 16% over the past month.
The rapid turnaround is another short chapter in the colorful and often chaotic story of Gill, who first rose to fame in 2021 as a leader in the early “meme stock” movement. Individual investors, empowered by access to the stock market through apps like Robinhood, rallied behind shares of companies like GameStop, confounding Wall Street.
In the now-dropped lawsuit, plaintiffs recounted Gill’s role in the 2021 stock market boom, then traced his activities earlier this year, from his return to Twitter in May to his return to Reddit in June, and attempted to link his social media posts — and his subsequent disclosures of stock holdings and options — to the volatile moves in GME stock.
The lawsuit included numerous screenshots of Twitter memes and Reddit posts. The plaintiffs even cited reports that financial regulators were looking into Gill’s activities, and that ETrade was considering kicking him off their trading platform.
Ultimately, Gill “engaged in a pump-and-dump scheme” with GameStop stock, the lawsuit alleged, violating federal securities laws and causing “significant losses and damages” to victims who “acquired GameStop securities at artificially inflated prices.”
Since the case was dismissed without prejudice, that does not prevent the plaintiffs from refiling the lawsuit against Gill at a later date.
Meanwhile, Gill appears to have shifted his focus of affection from GameStop to online pet food retailer Chewy — revealing Monday that he bought 9 million shares of the company last month.
Gill and the plaintiffs’ law firm did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Decrypt.
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