Case Name: Under Armour

Settlement Fund: $434,000,000

Claim Filing Deadline: 11/12/2024

Class Period: 9/16/2015 - 11/1/2019

Class definition: All persons and entities who purchased or otherwise acquired Class A and Class C common stock of Under Armour between September 16, 2015, and November 1, 2019, inclusive.

How Chicago Clearing Can Help:

Settlements related to companies with widely-held stocks like Under Armour are a great opportunity for retail investors to recover money, but a lot of brokers and bank trust departments do not have the time or the resources to do it for their clients. And so, they leave it to their clients-- who leave it on the table.

Most retail investors find the effort required to retrieve old trade data not worth the award they might get. Under Armour is a perfect example: the IRS instructs investors to retain records for seven years in case of an audit. This class period, and many of the other 120 settlements so far this year, begins beyond that seven-year rule. The thought of hunting down old documents in boxes in the basement, calling current or former trading firms they may have used for some PDFs, and then organizing all that material into a claim form probably strikes many investors about as enjoyable as an audit.

So understandably, many brokers and bank trust departments would like to provide class action claim filing as a valuable service, not to mention a value-add, to their clients. But even for sophisticated professionals, claim filing is a demanding task.

Consider the hurdles: how to keep up with well over 100 new claim filing deadlines each year? How to find all the settlements? How to gather all the data for hundreds or in some cases thousands of individual client claims?

Chicago Clearing Corporation (CCC) can help the retail investor recover money and can help the broker and bank trust department keep those clients happy. We routinely file claims for tens of thousands of accounts for a single settlement. Through our partnerships and other longstanding relationships with investment software providers, we can retrieve old and complicated trade data wherever it is stored, however old it may be. And while we do all this work for you, you are free to assist your retail clients with the real work of investing.

What this case is about:

Under Armour has settled a litigation over allegations it made false and misleading statements pertaining to the company's inventory amid tumult in the retail industry. Plaintiffs allege that the company was ill-prepared for department store closures and bankruptcies among many retailers who carried the brand, and thus wound up with high inventory levels and lower profit margins.

Plaintiffs fought hard for this settlement, which is fitting for a dispute over a brand whose very name implies rigor and strenuous effort toward achieving goals. Launched in early 2017, plaintiffs filed a complaint, then a consolidated amended complaint, and then a second amended complaint. In August 2019, the court dismissed the litigation with prejudice.

But, like a devoted athlete who failed to earn a varsity letter but did not fail inside—where it counts—the plaintiffs soon appealed. The appellate court, perhaps impressed by the plaintiff's moxie and spunk (though more likely persuaded by the force of their argument) remanded the case back to the lower court for further deliberation. A Third Amended Consolidated Complaint soon followed. Plaintiffs secured class certification in September 2022, but Under Armour fought on...

...in vain. In February of this year the court denied Under Armour's motion for summary judgment and finally, on July 12, 2024, the parties settled for $434 million.

If you have any questions about this or any other of the 120 settlements with claim filing deadlines this year (so far), please let us know.