backOn November 24, 2025, District Judge Alan D. Albright of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas approved a $46 million settlement resolving investor claims arising from the GPB Capital fraud litigation. Class plaintiffs alleged that the auditor defendants negligently prepared false and misleading audits and approved and distributed false and misleading financial statements for the GPB funds. Plaintiffs further alleged that GPB and its affiliate Ascendant Capital relied on a high-pressure sales force to market the securities to investors and then used money from later investors to fund “interest payments” to earlier investors.
The settling investors include those in a consolidated class action in Texas, as well as members of a putative class action pending in the Southern District of New York. The settling defendants – including CohnReznick LLP, Crowe LLP, Margolin Winer & Evens LLP, RSM US LLP and WithumSmith+Brown PC – provided auditing services to GPB funds that held investor money.
The cases are Kinnie Ma Individual Retirement Account et al. v. Ascendant Capital LLC et al., No. 1:19-cv-01050, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas; and DeLuca et al. v. GPB Holdings LP et al., No. 1:19-cv-10498, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The Kinnie Ma plaintiffs are represented by Stoll Stoll Berne Lokting & Shlachter PC. The DeLuca plaintiffs are represented by Grant & Eisenhofer PA and Dilworth Paxson LLP. The auditor defendants are represented by Hogan Lovells, Latham & Watkins LLP, Troutman Pepper Locke LLP, Williams & Connolly LLP and Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker LLP.
The Settlement Order is available here.