On May 15, 2025, Pomerantz secured final court approval of an $80 million settlement that the firm negotiated for investors in Grab Holdings Limited (“Grab”). Notably, this is the second-largest settlement to date of a SPAC-related securities litigation.
On December 1, 2021, the special purpose acquisition corporation (“SPAC”) Altimeter Growth Corp. completed a business combination with Grab, a delivery app organized under the laws of the Cayman Islands and based in Singapore. The result was that Grab, the surviving entity of the combination with Altimeter, went public with its shares listed on the Nasdaq. The SPAC merger was the largest-ever public market debut in the USA by a Southeast Asian company.
In the Proxy/Registration Statement to go public following the merger, Grab made a series of false statements concerning its driver supply that omitted a driver shortage it was experiencing at the time, made false statements about reducing driver and consumer incentives while withholding that incentives were increasing, and made false and misleading statements regarding Grab’s profit margins.
On March 3, 2022, Grab released its fourth quarter 2021 financial results. It announced that its revenues had declined 44% from the previous quarter; it also reported a $1.1 billion loss. On this news, the company’s share price plummeted 37.3%. Grab’s management blamed the results on the need to increase incentive spending to attract drivers and consumers.
Pomerantz filed a securities class action complaint against Grab, Chief Executive Anthony Tan and Chief Financial Officer Peter Oey in April 2022, alleging that the company materially misled the investing public and inflated the company’s share price, causing economic loss to investors who bought Grab’s shares at artificially inflated prices. In its amended complaint, Pomerantz sued Grab under Sections 10(b) and 14 of the Exchange Act and Section 11 of the Securities Act. The complaint alleged that Grab had already increased incentive spending to combat a driver supply shortage before the merger, contrary to the representations made in the Proxy/Registration Statement that listed the possibility of increasing incentives as a mere hypothetical.
In March 2024, U.S. District Judge Jennifer L. Rochon of the Southern District of New York sustained Pomerantz’s Sections 11 and 14 claims after a contested oral argument on defendants’ motion to dismiss.
Pomerantz’s Grab litigation was led by Partner Joshua B. Silverman and Of Counsel Brian P. O’Connell.
Case Name
In Re Grab Holding Ltd. Securities Litigation, No. 1:22-cv-02189 (S.D.N.Y.)
Class Period
December 2, 2021 to March 3, 2022
Claims
Sections 10(b) and 14 of the Exchange Act and Section 11 of the Securities Act