Ninth Circuit Revives Class Action Lawsuit Over Alleged Misstatements, Misleading Projections, and Debt Deception in Cardone Capital Real Estate Offerings
🔎 INSIDE THE RULING
- The Ninth Circuit REVERSED a district court dismissal in Pino v. Cardone Capital, LLC, finding the plaintiff sufficiently alleged misleading investment statements and material omissions.
- Real estate mogul Grant Cardone allegedly continued promoting a 15% return on Instagram and YouTube—even after the SEC warned him the projections lacked evidentiary support.
- The court slammed the district court for misapplying securities law and ignoring governing precedent, including Omnicare v. Laborers District Council.
🏛️ BACKGROUND: A Promise Too Good to Be True?
In the age of TikTok finance gurus and YouTube wealth strategists, Grant Cardone stood out for his brash confidence, online charisma, and high-octane investment pitches.
“You’re gonna walk away with a 15% annualized return… You can tell the SEC that’s what I said it would be… Some people call me Nostradamus, because I’m predicting the future dude—this is what’s gonna happen,” Cardone told potential investors on YouTube, according to the court’s June 10, 2025 opinion (p. 4, ¶3).
Those promises helped Cardone raise capital from unaccredited, everyday investors through Regulation A offerings via Cardone Equity Fund V and VI, administered by his firm Cardone Capital, LLC.
But in a stinging rebuke of Cardone’s tactics and the lower court’s ruling, the Ninth Circuit held that Christine Pino, the daughter of late ‘unaccredited’ investor Luis Pino, has valid securities law claims under §§ 12(a)(2) and 15 of the Securities Act of 1933. These include claims that Cardone:
