The number of securities class-action lawsuits filed in 2024 increased for the second consecutive year, according to a report released Jan. 29 by Cornerstone Research and the Stanford Law School Securities Class Action Clearinghouse.
The report, Securities Class Action Filings — 2024 Year in Review, found that plaintiffs filed 225 securities class-action lawsuits in 2024, up from 215 in 2023 and 208 in 2022. The number of core filings — those excluding mergers and acquisitions — also increased to 220, up from 209 the previous year.
The year-over-year increase in filings was paced by artificial intelligence-related lawsuits. The number of AI-related filings more than doubled, to 15 in 2024 from seven in 2023, according to the report. Of the 15 AI-related filings, eight were in the technology sector and four were in the communications sector.
Also, the number of COVID-19-related filings rose to 15 in 2024 from 11 the previous year but remained below the high of 20 in 2022. In contrast to the AI and COVID-19 trend categories, the number of special purpose acquisition company and cryptocurrency-related filings fell by more than 50% as compared with 2023. There were 11 total SPAC filings and seven crypto filings in 2024, the report noted.
“Prospectively, crypto is the elephant in the room,” said Joseph Grundfest, a former SEC commissioner who’s now professor emeritus at Stanford Law School, in a statement. “How will the statutes and regulations be reformed? If much of crypto is redefined as not constituting a security, then securities litigation in that sector will obviously plummet. Stay tuned, is about all one can say.”
