Anna Erickson White

For nearly 30 years at Morrison & Foerster LLP, Anna Erickson White has represented public companies and their officers and directors in securities litigation and a variety of other complex matters. In addition, she is one of the founding women of WISe, Women in Securities, that aims to promote, mentor and develop women in her field.

She has served on MoFo's executive committee, compensation committee and board of directors. She has served twice as firmwide managing partner.

White said that the pace of securities litigation rises and falls with the stock market. "When the market is strong, there aren't as many cases. Now that the market is going haywire, we're starting to see more of them. Volatility creates more opportunity for the plaintiffs' bar to bring more cases. I'm currently busy with a few very active cases."

She leads the team representing Santa Clara-based Cloudera, Inc., a data management software company, and some of its officers and directors in litigation in federal and state court. White's team won a motion to dismiss the federal securities class action and continue to defend a related derivative litigation. The shareholder plaintiffs allege that Cloudera concealed negative information about declining revenues and merged with another company to generate the appearance of growth. A parallel case proceeds in state court in Santa Clara County. In re Cloudera Inc. Securities Litigation, 5:19-cv-03221 (N.D. Cal., filed June 7, 2019).

"The plaintiffs have amended their complaint but our motion to dismiss the federal action is pending," White said, noting that the case was slowed by its reassignment to a different judge after former U.S. District Judge Lucy H. Koh of San Jose was elevated to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. "We don't think their amended complaint adds much, and we feel we have a good chance of prevailing."

She leads the MoFo team representing webcasting services technology company ON24 Inc. of San Francisco and its directors and officers in securities litigation relating to alleged misrepresentations in the company's IPO materials regarding growth and the strength of the company's customer base. Douvia v. ON24 Inc., 21-cv-08578 (N.D. Cal., filed Nov. 3, 2021).

"Covid created risks and uncertainty, and ON24 noted this in its IPO disclosures last year," White said. "So when demand turned out to be not as high and the stock dropped, investors sued. But my client is doing well now."

White said that even after 30 years, she still relishes the chance to investigate new clients' businesses. "I enjoy what I do because I get to learn about different companies and industries. And I like being a mentor to junior attorneys--a lot of whom are about the age of my own grown daughters."

- John Roemer