Financial reporter subpoenaed for testimony in securities fraud case

Roddy Boyd, editor and founder of the investigative reporting outlet Foundation for Financial Journalism, was subpoenaed for testimony in connection with a California securities fraud lawsuit on Nov. 30, 2022, according to court records reviewed by the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.

Boyd moved to quash the subpoena on Jan. 17, 2023, and it was withdrawn and the case dismissed in February 2023 as part of settlement negotiations in the underlying fraud case.

In January 2019, Boyd published an article through his Southern Investigative Reporting Foundation — later renamed the Foundation for Financial Journalism — alleging that pharmaceutical company Corcept Therapeutics paid doctors to prescribe its drug Korlym for off-label uses.

The revelations in Boyd’s article led to a decline in Corcept’s share price, company shareholders alleged in a securities fraud class-action suit filed two months later against the company and its top executives in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

As part of its defense, Corcept issued the November 2022 order for Boyd’s testimony about documents that were sought in two separate subpoenas sent to the reporter and the investigative reporting outlet. Those legal orders directed Boyd and the outlet to turn over a wide range of materials related to his newsgathering activities, his finances and those of his outlet, and any disciplinary actions against him.

The motion to set aside the deposition subpoena, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, argued that the information the defendants asked for was irrelevant to the lawsuit and protected by the First Amendment and the reporter’s privilege.

It also asserted that all parties to the suit agreed that his article relied entirely on publicly available information, and so the subpoena was merely “a transparent attempt to use the discovery process to chill Mr. Boyd’s speech.”

On Feb. 13, Boyd withdrew his motion after Corcept dropped the deposition subpoena. U.S. District Judge Rodolfo Ruiz then dismissed the case Feb. 15.

Boyd told the Tracker in an email that the subpoenas “were designed to harass an established, credible, non-profit news organization.”

He also noted that legal actions or threats against small media outlets triggered a requirement to notify their insurer. “This places the press organization in a much higher risk cohort,” Boyd added, “guaranteeing their premiums and deductibles rise the following year.”