Symantec, Investors Win Final Approval of $70 Million Settlement

Symantec Corp. and investors who say it misled them about its financial performance following two 2016 acquisitions secured final approval for a $70 million deal to resolve the suit in federal court in California.

The cash settlement “represents a recovery of approximately 6.9% of the absolute maximum possible damages for all claims,” the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California said. “This is a low-end deal but barely within the range of reasonableness.”

Investors accuse the software company—now known as NortonLifeLock Inc.—of manipulating its financial reports to make its performance look better after it acquired Blue Coat Systems Inc. and Lifelock Inc. Symantec denies any wrongdoing.

Judge William Alsup certified the investor class in 2020. The class consists of everyone who acquired publicly-traded Symantec common stock from May 11, 2017, through Aug. 2, 2018, and lost money as a result, with exclusions for those with close ties to the company.

“Only eleven individual class members (no institutional investors) have opted out in connection with the proposed settlement,” Alsup’s Thursday order said. “Not a single class member has submitted an objection.”

The claim release provisions in the settlement are “needlessly cumbersome and verbose,” Alsup said. But once “stripped of the bloat,” the provisions properly limit the released claims to those that were actually asserted in the suit or arise out of the transactions challenged in the complaint and concern claims that weren’t asserted.

Alsup also awarded class counsel Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann LLP $13.3 million—19% of the settlement fund—in attorneys’ fees. The firm will also receive just over $2 million as reimbursement for litigation expenses.

Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati represents Symantec.

The case is SEB Inv. Mgmt. AB v. Symantec Corp., N.D. Cal., No. 3:18-cv-02902, final settlement approval 2/10/22.