Zuora Investors Seek Class Status in Product Integration Suit

Zuora Inc. investors who accused the company of misleading them about product integration problems asked a federal judge in California to certify them as a class, saying it’s the best way to resolve the case.

The would-be class includes “many thousands of investors” who acquired Zuora common stock from April 12, 2018, through May 30, 2019, the software company’s investors told the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. They defeated Zuora’s motion to dismiss in April.

More than 455 million Zuora shares traded during the proposed class period, and 271 institutional investors owned the company’s stock, the class certification motion said.

The institutional investor serving as lead plaintiff would make a good class representative and isn’t “subject to any unique or special defenses,” the motion said. “The claims of both Lead Plaintiff and the Class concern the veracity of Defendants’ class-wide statements and will rely on the same facts and legal theories to establish liability.”

The lead plaintiff doesn’t have any conflicts of interest with other class members, and “has supervised and monitored the progress of this case and actively participated in the litigation,” according to the Dec. 4 motion. Its sophistication and the substantial resources it can devote to litigation make it “exactly the type of institutional investor Congress wanted to empower when passing” the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act.

Judge Susan Illston is overseeing the case.

Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP represents the investors as lead counsel, and they asked that the firm be appointed class counsel. Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP represents Zuora.

The case is Roberts v. Zuora Inc., N.D. Cal., No. 19-cv-03422, class certification motion filed 12/4/20.