April 9, 2025
Willkie was recognized in The AmLaw Litigation Daily with a Litigator of the Week “Shout Out” for securing the dismissal of a securities class action in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois stemming from Discover Financial Services’ 2023 announcement that it had put certain credit cards into an incorrect pricing tier, as well as from regulatory consent orders that Discover entered into related to its student loan servicing practices and other compliance matters. Willkie represented ten current and former members of Discover’s Board of Directors (Independent Directors).
The class action complaint against Discover, certain current and former officers, and the Independent Directors, alleged that Discover made a series of allegedly false or misleading statements, through various public statements and filings, about Discover’s risk management and compliance deficiencies that assured investors that Discover’s compliance efforts were effective when, in reality, they were not. Plaintiffs argued that those statements artificially inflated Discover’s stock price, and they were damaged when Discover’s stock price dropped following revelation of its compliance issues in 2023.
In his decision, U.S. Judge Martha Pacold held that none of the challenged statements about Discover’s compliance efforts were misleading. Read more about the case here.
The Willkie team was led by partners Todd Cosenza and Charles Dean Cording and included partner Debra Bogo-Ernst; counsel Joshua Levy; and associates Amanda Payne, Anthony Vecchio, Rahima Ghafoori, Victoria Efetevbia, Jacqueline Cope, Samantha Huang, and Amanda Cort.
