Farai M. Shawa

Current Cases

• FMC Corporation

  This securities fraud class action arises out of defendants’ representations and omissions made regarding the demand for FMC’s suite of crop protection products during the COVID-19 pandemic and afterwards. As the realities of supply chain disruptions gripped the world, FMC’s distribution partners sought to purchase as much product as possible. Beginning in 2020 and stretching into 2022, FMC welcomed this boom in sales across all of its products, including its flagship diamide insecticides.

  While this dynamic of extensive overbuying was well known within the Company, investors were kept in the dark as to this practice, which did not represent a new baseline of demand, but would predictably tail off and then cannibalize FMC’s future sales. At the same time, FMC’s diamide insecticides were facing increasing competition from generics being sold at a fraction of the price. In spite of the knowledge that inflated sales trends in 2020 and 2021 were unsustainable, FMC sought to convince the public that the high sales numbers were a new normal with no signs of slowing down, and that generic competition was only a worry in the distant future.

  Plaintiffs allege defendants made repeated representations throughout the Class Period that demand for the Company’s products was robust, and that growth from recent years would continue. However, by 2022, demand for FMC’s products was declining precipitously, as distributors, retailers and end-users held overstuffed inventories and dramatically slowed their buying. This continued into 2023, despite FMC’s extraordinary efforts to jumpstart sales, including through costly incentives and credit arrangements. Then on May 2, 2023, FMC announced to the public that it was lowering its growth expectations for the coming quarter, but still assured investors that there were no further issues to report. On July 10, 2023, FMC again revised down its revenue and EBITDA outlooks for the year, still without disclosing the realities of its demand environment. Then on September 7, 2023, Blue Orca Capital published a report detailing its claim that FMC had “concealed from investors” the deterioration of its core business, creating an “inescapable cycle” of falling revenues, plummeting cash flows and declining profits. The story was not fully unraveled until late October 2023, when FMC admitted to investors that it expected the destocking of client warehouses to extend into 2024, and that its cratering sales numbers and cash flow had driven the Company to renegotiate its credit agreements and begin a full restructuring of its Brazilian operations, the Company’s single largest sales region for the past five years.

  On July 17, 2024, plaintiffs filed a 186-page complaint on behalf of a putative class of investors who purchased FMC common stock between February 9, 2022 and October 30, 2023, alleging violations of Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. On September 17, 2024, the defendants filed a motion to dismiss the complaint. Briefing on the defendants’ motion is now complete and pending before the court. 

• Humana, Inc.

  Defendant Humana Inc. is an insurance and healthcare company that provides medical benefit plans to approximately 16.3 million people. This securities fraud class action arises out of Humana’s materially false or misleading statements concerning the profitability and quality of its core Medicare Advantage business, which generates the vast majority of the Company’s revenue. Medicare Advantage plans provide health insurance to seniors over the age of 65 and those under 65 with particular disabilities.

  On November 20, 2024, Plaintiff filed a 215-page complaint on behalf of a putative class of investors alleging that Defendants Humana, its former Chief Executive Officer, Bruce D. Broussard, and current Chief Financial Officer, Susan Diamond, violated Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act.

  As alleged in the Complaint, Humana reaped record profits during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic due to abnormally low use of healthcare services by the Company’s Medicare Advantage members. By mid-2022, investors were concerned that Humana would see heightened healthcare utilization, and therefore lower profits, as its Medicare Advantage members began seeking care that had been deferred during the pandemic. For Humana, member utilization and the associated cost of providing member benefits is the key measure of the Company’s profitability. During the Class Period, Defendants assured investors that the Company was continuing to experience favorable utilization trends in its Medicare Advantage business, and downplayed worries about future utilization increases. In addition, Defendants touted as a competitive advantage and revenue-driver Humana’s Star ratings—a quality measure assigned each year by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) that had historically resulted in billions of dollars in additional payments to Humana.

  However, unbeknownst to investors, as the effects of the pandemic abated, Defendants knew that the depressed utilization had created a massive backlog of healthcare needs, particularly elective surgical procedures. By the beginning of the Class Period in July 2022, Defendants knew that there was a surge of Medicare Advantage members seeking previously deferred care, which was significantly increasing the Company’s benefit expenses. Moreover, Defendants knew that the Company’s own internal analyses showed that Humana faced a significant downgrade in its Star ratings, jeopardizing billions in Medicare revenue.

  The Complaint alleges that Defendants actively concealed the Company’s increased Medicare Advantage utilization through improper denials of claims for medical services and aggressive prior authorization practices. At the same time, Defendants undertook a series of destructive cost-cutting measures and headcount reductions. These cost-cutting measures led to declines in the quality of Humana’s Medicare Advantage benefit plans, and ultimately, its Star ratings by hamstringing the departments responsible for ensuring that Humana’s members had access to high quality, accessible, and efficient healthcare.

  The truth regarding Humana’s increased utilization began to emerge in June 2023, causing a series of stock price declines in the latter half of 2023 and early 2024. Throughout this period, Defendants continued to tout the Company’s Star ratings and claimed that they could offset the Company’s increased utilization costs through further cost cuts. Then, in October 2024, the truth regarding the dramatic decline in Humana’s Medicare Advantage plans was revealed when the Company’s significantly degraded Star ratings were released by CMS, causing another precipitous drop in Humana’s stock price. Defendants moved to dismiss the Complaint in January 2025. Briefing on Defendants’ motion to dismiss concluded in April 2025 and is pending before the Court.

  Read Amended Class Action Complaint Here

• ICON plc

  This securities fraud class action asserts claims against ICON plc (“ICON” or the “Company”), a clinical research organization (“CRO”) that handles clinical trials for large pharmaceutical and biotech companies, its current CEO, Stephen Cutler, its former CFO, Brendan Brennan, and current COO, Barry Balfe. The case arises out of Defendants’ false and misleading statements regarding ICON’s key business metrics and financial performance in the face of significant decreases in research and development expenditures from the Company’s large pharmaceutical customers. Defendants’ misstatements propped up ICON’s share price, allowing Individual Defendants Cutler and Brennan to enrich themselves with nearly $30 million from insider sales before the fraud was revealed.

  Prior to the start of the Class Period, ICON acquired one of its main competitors, PRA Health Sciences, Inc. (“PRA”), in an attempt to increase the Company’s exposure to the biotech sector. The costly PRA acquisition was largely a failure, leaving ICON saddled with billions of dollars in debt and significant interest payments. By mid-2023, ICON’s share price had fallen well below its prior December 2021 peak, and its credit rating sank to “junk.” This prompted ICON and the Individual Defendants to resort to fraud. During the Class Period, Defendants repeatedly made fraudulent representations about ICON’s key business metrics and inflated ICON’s financial performance in violation of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (“GAAP”). In particular, the Complaint alleges that Defendants misrepresented or omitted material information concerning: (1) the purported increase in the number of Requests for Proposals (“RFPs”) ICON received from its biotech customers and its RFP win rate; (2) the Company’s declining business from its largest customers; (3) ICON’s business wins and book-to-bill ratio; and (4) the Company’s overall financial health. Further, Defendants attempted to hide ICON’s deteriorating performance by engaging in improper revenue recognition and accounting practices in violation of GAAP, including holding open reporting periods to book revenue properly attributable to the following period, issuing fake invoices so that the Company could prematurely recognize revenue, and omitting project costs. Throughout the Class Period, both Brennan and Cutler signed SOX certifications stating that ICON’s financial statements “fairly present[ed], in all material respects, the financial conditions and operations of the Company,” yet those statements materially misstated the Company’s financial performance in violation of GAAP.

  In truth, ICON was seeing declining RFPs and fewer contracts across its business groups, its largest customers had informed Defendants that they would be doing less work with the Company, and ICON was engaging in fraudulent financial reporting tactics to mislead the public. The truth about Defendants’ fraud came to light through a series of partial corrective events. First, on July 24, 2024, ICON reported weak financial results, and during ICON’s July 25, 2024 earnings call, Cutler alluded to challenges and pricing pressure in the large pharma space but denied that these factors had affected the Company. Next, on October 23, 2024, ICON revealed a surprise “revenue shortfall” of $100 million for 3Q24 and reduced the Company’s 2024 guidance, which Defendants had reiterated just six weeks earlier. ICON also disclosed that leading indicators of underlying demand for ICON’s services had significantly deteriorated. Finally, on January 14, 2025, the truth was fully revealed when ICON issued financial guidance for 2025 that was below analysts’ expectations. In the wake of these disclosures, ICON’s stock dropped precipitously, causing substantial losses to the Company’s investors.

  On September 12, 2025, Plaintiffs filed a 201-page Complaint on behalf of a putative class of investors who purchased ICON common stock between July 27, 2023 and January 13, 2025, alleging violations of Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Through the Complaint, Plaintiffs seek to recover damages suffered by ICON investors during the Class Period. Defendants are scheduled to respond to the Complaint on or before November 12, 2025.