Supreme Court seeks Trump administration views on Robinhood IPO dispute

By Andrew Chung

June 1 (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court asked President Donald Trump’s administration on Monday to weigh in on whether it should hear a bid by Robinhood Markets to shut down a lawsuit accusing the online brokerage of misleading investors about its financials and growth prospects for its initial public offering.

The justices are considering whether to take up Robinhood’s appeal of a lower court’s decision to revive the proposed class-action lawsuit by plaintiffs who alleged that the company failed to adequately disclose the negative impact of a meme stock and cryptocurrency frenzy that dried up before it went public in July 2021. 

The plaintiffs, investors who acquired Robinhood shares tied to the IPO, sued under provisions of the Securities Act of 1933, a federal investor protection law that seeks to ensure companies disclose accurate information needed to make informed investment decisions. 

Results following the IPO that showed declines in revenue and key performance indicators caused the Menlo Park, California-based company’s stock price to drop sharply, the plaintiffs said. 

They claimed that Robinhood made false and misleading statements and omissions in its IPO documents by not disclosing its reliance on fad trading in social media-driven meme stocks including GameStop and the cryptocurrency Dogecoin, which subsided months before the IPO, threatening its financial prospects.

Robinhood rejected the claims, contending that because of the trading volume spikes at the beginning of 2021, its IPO documents made extensive disclosures about future risks and warned about a downturn from the meme-stock and Dogecoin-driven peaks.

The lead plaintiffs in the lawsuit, first filed in 2021, are Vinod Sodha, a psychiatrist from Beverly Hills, California, and his daughter Amee Sodha, a physician from Millburn, New Jersey. 

U.S. District Judge Edward Chen in San Francisco dismissed the lawsuit in 2024 after finding that the plaintiffs’ claims of Robinhood’s failings were insufficient for the case to proceed. 

The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals revived the challenge in 2025, finding that Chen applied the wrong standards under the securities laws and regulations at issue in the case.

Robinhood urged the Supreme Court to hear the case, saying that the 9th Circuit’s decision exposes companies to massive liability while imposing burdensome disclosure requirements that risk burying investors in trivial information.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York; Editing by Will Dunham)