Overstock.com, Inc. v. Gradient Analytics, Inc.

A company that produces and publishes subscriber-based analytic reports on public companies, regularly collaborating with the principals of hedge funds and other institutional investors to produce custom, negative reports on targeted companies, stepped over the line into defamation and other torts with respect to the flurry and timing of reports on an online closeout retailer. The hedge fund principals took short positions in the stock and worked closely with the publisher to put out reports that were anything but the purported unbiased and objective assessment promised to subscribers. So says the targeted company in its complaint, and so aver various declarants in the papers opposing the anti-SLAPP motions prosecuted by the publisher and the hedge fund parties. In this scenario, and at this early stage of discovery, the trial court correctly declined to strike respondents’ complaint. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment.

I. BACKGROUND

A. The Parties

1. Overstock.com, Inc.

According to Overstock’s first amended complaint, Overstock is an online closeout retailer. It offers customers an opportunity to shop online for brand name merchandise at heavily discounted prices,…