Sandy Springs bank investors sue

McKinnon declined to comment citing pending litigation. Porter did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

Failed bank suits are beginning to pop up as wiped out shareholders attempt to recoup their damages. The latest suit was filed by Decatur attorney Henry Turner and former DeKalb Superior Court Judge Keegan Federal Jr., who are representing investors in similar cases versus insiders at the failed Georgian Bank and Alpha Bank & Trust.

Regulators closed RockBridge in December 2009, just 37 months after it opened. Its failure resulted in a $99.4 million loss to the FDIC’s insurance fund.

The 18 plaintiffs — mostly individual investors and small investment funds — relied on the defendants’ statements about the bank’s finances and continued to hold their stock as its condition worsened, the suit said.

The plaintiffs contend McKinnon, Porter and potential unnamed defendants did not disclose the scope of problems or regulator concerns about the bank's operations for months. They only did so when the bank sought additional investor cash to shore up its crippled balance sheet, the suit said. But that effort failed.

A post-mortem of the bank's collapse published in July said RockBridge strayed from its business plan. Instead of being a high-touch lender to small businesses, it chose high-risk lending on speculative real estate and even corporate jets. The report faulted RockBridge for "inadequate" management and board oversight, too heavy a reliance on real estate lending and poor underwriting standards.