A federal judge has advanced a class-action lawsuit against Graphic Packaging International and two of its former C-suite executives by choosing a lead plaintiff and lead counsel.
Attorneys had submitted several proposed orders to name certain parties the lead plaintiff. On Tuesday, Judge Jeannette A. Vargas in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York approved Louis Oden III as lead plaintiff, meaning he would represent a “class” of people suing the defendants.
“When you're choosing a lead plaintiff, you're trying to choose somebody who is representative of the entire class,” said Emmanuel Hurtado, an associate at Stubbs Alderton & Markiles who reviewed the complaint but is not involved in the case. “You would want to choose a plaintiff who was actually harmed, so in this case probably a shareholder.”
A shareholder initially filed the lawsuit in May against GPI as well as former CEO Mike Doss and former CFO Stephen Scherger. The suit alleges the defendants violated federal securities laws by misleading investors with certain statements, or by failing to make disclosures, about the company’s financial health and operations.
The complaint says the defendants indicated GPI’s operations and financial results were “strong and steady” despite market headwinds. However, the company’s stock price proceeded to drop precipitously, which the lawsuit says caused financial harm to shareholders who used the information to make investment decisions. Because they had access to the company’s securities filings and communications, Doss and Scherger had the ability to correct the misleading public statements, or prevent them from being released, the lawsuit says.
In October 2025, Amcor announced that it was hiring Scherger away from GPI to become its new CFO. In December, GPI announced it would end Doss’ 10-year run as CEO and replace him with Robbert Rietbroek as of Jan. 1. In June, Doss was named CEO of Global Cellulose Fibers, a company formed in January when private equity firm American Industrial Partners purchased International Paper’s GCF business for $1.5 billion.
The lawsuit seeks damage payments, along with payment of attorneys’ fees and other costs, for shareholders who acquired GPI shares between Feb. 4, 2025, and Feb. 2, 2026.
A lead plaintiff for class-action lawsuits such as this one should have standing relative to the defendant, and the court must determine that plaintiff has been injured in similar ways to other plaintiffs, Hurtado explained. Determining the lead plaintiff helps to determine a class for a case.
“They're going to use the lead plaintiff as kind of like the exemplar of what the class should be, so that's significant,” he said. “Now the court is going to rule on whether there is an identifiable class of people that meet the criteria for a class in this case.”
After a court decides whether class certification is appropriate, then lawyers typically reach out to members of the named class for invitations to participate, Hurtado said. In this case, attorneys might contact all shareholders who held stock during the stated time frame.
“The big hurdle is the class certification issue” and that “can make or break a case,” he said. “Once the court rules on that, there will most likely be motions to dismiss,” followed by a lengthy discovery period.
Graphic Packaging has previously said it does not comment on pending litigation.
