The lawsuits alleged that Mary Meeker issued overly optimistic stock evaluations and biased investment advice about internet companies during the tech-stock boom period, for personal gain and for the profit of her firm.
US District Judge Milton Pollack labelled the allegations contained within the lawsuits as “gross and unrestrained” and said they were filled with mere “market gossip” which amounted to “abusive litigation.” He gave the parties bringing the cases a period of 30 days to file an amended complaint if they wish to raise any “proper allegations”. The judge described one of the lawsuits as “hopelessly redundant, argumentative,” adding that it had “much irrelevancy and inflammatory material”.
Similar lawsuits have been filed against many of the major securities firms. Last month, Merrill Lynch paid $400,000 to settle a lawsuit which also alleged that an analyst had misled investors over internet stocks.