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Morrison & Foerster achieved a landmark settlement for its client Farmland Partners Inc. (FPI), a publicly traded farmland REIT located in Denver, Colorado. 

Morrison & Foerster Secures Groundbreaking Result for Farmland Partners Inc. in Short-and-Distort Case

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Morrison & Foerster achieved a landmark settlement for its client Farmland Partners Inc. (FPI), a publicly traded farmland REIT located in Denver, Colorado. The matter involved a short-and-distort case against Quinton Mathews, the previously anonymous author known as “Rota Fortunae,” of a defamatory article published on the financial website “Seeking Alpha” that drove down FPI's stock price by 39% in one day, allowing Mr. Mathews and his clients to profit from their short positions. As part of the settlement, Mathews <a href="https://seekingalpha.com/instablog/47800059-rota-fortunae/5605955-mathews-settlement-press-release" target="_blank">acknowledged publicly</a> that his July 2018 article was full of false statements, and Mathews made a payment that was multiples of the profits he made off the scheme. The case presented novel legal issues, including: unmasking an anonymous author in a defamation case; how to serve an anonymous party; how to remove to federal court without consent of unknown Doe defendants; the applicability of anti-SLAPP statutes in federal court; determining whether, and when, statutes of limitations run for anonymous parties, and resolving thorny questions of personal jurisdiction.The team representing FPI included Corporate Finance partner Justin Salon; Litigation partners Scott Llewellyn and Grant Esposito; and Securities Litigation partner Michael Birnbaum; with Litigation associates Shaelyn Dawson, Kyle Pietari, and Brenden Cline.Read FPI’s <a href="http://ir.farmlandpartners.com/News/news-details/2021/Rota-Fortunae-Author-of-July-2018-Attack-on-Farmland-Partners-Retracts-Short-and-Distort-Article-Admits-Articles-Falsity-and-Returns-Multiples-of-Trading-Profits-He-Gained-from-Attack/default.aspx" target="_blank">press release</a>.

Morrison & Foerster Secures Groundbreaking Result for Farmland Partners Inc. in Short-and-Distort Case