Christopher R. Kinnon

Christopher Kinnon is a partner in Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP’s San Diego office, where his practice focuses on securities fraud litigation. Chris and a team of Robbins Geller attorneys obtained a $1.21 billion settlement in In re Valeant Pharms. Int’l, Inc. Sec. Litig. (D.N.J.), a case that Vanity Fair reported as “the corporate scandal of its era” that had raised “fundamental questions about the functioning of our health-care system, the nature of modern markets, and the slippery slope of ethical rationalizations.” This is the largest securities class action settlement against a pharmaceutical manufacturer and the ninth largest ever. In addition, Chris and a team of Robbins Geller attorneys obtained an $809 million settlement in In re Twitter, Inc. Sec. Litig., a case that did not settle until the day before trial was set to commence.

Most recently, Chris was a key member of a team of Robbins Geller attorneys who obtained a $434 million settlement in In re Under Armour Sec. Litig. The case was previously dismissed with prejudice in 2019, but then resurrected through a highly unusual procedural maneuver, a successful motion for an indicative ruling: asking the federal judge who had dismissed the case to issue an indicative opinion informing the Fourth Circuit that he would revive the original case if it were remanded to him. Over the next five years, the Robbins Geller team defeated defendants’ motions for summary judgment and to exclude plaintiffs’ expert witnesses. The case settled just weeks before a jury trial was set to begin in Baltimore, Maryland. The $434 million recovery is the second largest securities-fraud settlement ever in the Fourth Circuit and is among the top 50 largest such recoveries in U.S. history.

Chris is currently representing investors in securities fraud actions against Green Dot Corporation (C.D. Cal.) and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (D.N.J.).

Chris earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of British Columbia, graduating with Class One Honors. He earned his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Michigan Law School, where he was a Clarence Darrow Scholar (three-year, full-tuition merit scholarship). While in law school, he interned at the National Labor Relations Board in Washington, D.C., as a Peggy Browning Fellow, and was a contributing editor with the University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform. In 2022, Chris was awarded California Lawyer of the Year by the Daily Journal. He has been named a Rising Star by Super Lawyers Magazine.

Before law school, Chris was a municipal sanitation worker and an elected executive board member with the Canadian Union of Public Employees, Local 1004 (CUPE 1004). Before that, he was a recording artist signed to prominent record labels in Canada and the United States.

Chris was a summer associate with Robbins Geller in 2016 and returned to the Firm after graduating from law school.

• Rising Star, Super Lawyers Magazine, 2024
• California Lawyer of the Year, Daily Journal, 2022

University of Michigan Law School, J.D., 2017

• Clarence Darrow Scholar

University of British Columbia, B.A., 2008

• California
• United States District Courts for the Northern, Central, and Southern Districts of California
• United States District Court for the District of Colorado

Notable Cases

Publications

• Darren Robbins, Donna Campbell & Christopher Kinnon, Collaborative Loss Recovery: Canadian Pension Plans Leading the Way, Plans & Trusts, vol. 41, no. 4 (July/August 2023), at 18-23
• Darren Robbins, Donna Campbell & Christopher Kinnon, Sounding board: How Canadian institutional investors can manage corporate fraud risk, Benefits Canada (Feb. 16, 2023)