Acadia Healthcare reached a settlement in long-running stockholder derivative litigation that will send $12 million to resolve the claims and require the company to pay $4.75 million in attorneys’ fees and expenses.
The settlement covers three derivative actions that began in 2019, 2020 and 2021 and were tied to allegations including breaches of fiduciary duty, insider trading, waste of corporate assets and unjust enrichment. The cases were filed in federal court in Tennessee and in Delaware’s Court of Chancery.
The litigation stretched across multiple years of deferrals, document productions and mediation sessions. In the federal case, the first complaint was filed on Feb. 21, 2019, and later amended on Feb. 21, 2025. In the Delaware cases, one plaintiff obtained more than 800 pages of books-and-records materials, while another received more than 800 pages of responsive documents as well. One plaintiff also reviewed more than 4,800 pages of public records.
Settlement talks ran through at least three mediation sessions. A Nov. 16, 2023 mediation did not produce a deal, and a planned May 14, 2025 session was canceled after the related securities class action hit an impasse. A third mediation on Dec. 16, 2025 also ended without agreement, but the mediator later proposed the $12 million monetary component, which the parties accepted on Dec. 23, 2025.
The corporate governance reforms were finalized on Jan. 13, 2026. The fee arrangement was then settled on Feb. 25, 2026, and the parties executed a term sheet on March 3, 2026.
In all, the resolution replaces years of litigation with a $12 million payment and $4.75 million in fees and expenses, after more than three years of negotiations and multiple rounds of mediation. Following these announcements, the company's shares moved -2.49%, and are now trading at a price of $27.80. If you want to know more, read the company's complete 8-K report here.
