Josh Yount, a litigation partner in Mayer Brown's Chicago office and a member of the firm's top-ranked Supreme Court and Appellate practice, focuses his practice on appellate litigation, class certification defense, and securities law. With experience successfully representing a wide variety of businesses, he offers clients sophisticated legal analysis, careful strategic thinking, and vigorous advocacy.

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When the Comcast Corp. v. Behrend decision came down, my colleagues summarized the Supreme Court’s ruling.  Since then, I’ve put together an analysis of the decision and its potential implications.  Lexis has now published the piece as a part of its ongoing Emerging Issues Analysis series.  It is available here:  2013 Emerging Issues 6992 ($).  Enjoy.
Continue Reading What Does Comcast Corp. v. Behrend Mean For Class Action Defendants?

In Section 10(b) securities-fraud cases based on affirmative misrepresentations, a class action cannot be certified unless investor reliance is presumed under the fraud-on-the-market theory of Basic, Inc. v. Levinson, 485 U.S. 224 (1988). In Erica P. John Fund, Inc. v. Halliburton Co., 131 S. Ct. 2179 (2011), the Supreme Court ruled that a plaintiff does not need to establish loss causation at the class-certification stage in order to invoke the fraud-on-the-market presumption. On remand from that ruling, Halliburton argued that it should be permitted to rebut that presumption and defeat the request for class certification with evidence that
Continue Reading Can Securities Fraud Defendants Rebut Price Impact To Avoid Class Certification?

With all of the attention on last week’s Amgen decision, another interesting decision addressing the fraud-on-the-market presumption of reliance in securities fraud actions may have escaped notice. In GAMCO Investors, Inc. v. Vivendi, S.A. (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 28, 2013), Judge Scheindlin found that the defendant had rebutted the presumption of reliance as to a group of related investment advisers and mutual funds by showing that the plaintiffs’ investment decisions did not rely on the prices of the defendant’s securities as an accurate assessment of the value of those securities. As one of the few decisions to address this issue following a bench trial, GAMCO provides a valuable example of how the presumption of reliance can be rebutted. The decision also illustrates why individualized questions as to reliance should make class certification impossible in some fraud-on-the-market class actions.
Continue Reading Securities Fraud Defendant Rebuts Fraud-on-the-Market Presumption of Reliance

Today, in Amgen Inc. v. Connecticut Retirement Plans and Trust Funds, No. 11-1085, the Supreme Court held that proof of materiality is not a prerequisite for class certification in a securities fraud class action under Section 10(b), even though materiality is a predicate of the fraud-on-the-market presumption of reliance.  The opinion for the majority of the Court was authored by Justice Ginsburg.  Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Kennedy dissented.  Justice Alito wrote a concurring opinion indicating that, in an appropriate case, he (like the three dissenting justices) would be open to reconsidering the fraud-on-the-market presumption.  For more, see our report
Continue Reading Supreme Court Holds that Securities Fraud Plaintiffs Need Not Show Materiality at Class Certification

I previously blogged about the Second Circuit’s troubling decision in NECA-IBEW Health & Welfare Fund v. Goldman Sachs & Co. (pdf), 693 F.3d 145 (2d Cir. 2012), which invented a “class standing” doctrine allowing a named plaintiff in a class action to assert Securities Act claims regarding securities that he or she never purchased. In the wake of that decision, plaintiffs have filed a flurry of motions to reconsider district court decisions that had dismissed claims like these for lack of standing.

So far, a few courts have granted those motions and revived some or all of the previously dismissed
Continue Reading Plaintiffs Seek to Revive Securities Fraud Class Actions Under Second Circuit’s “Class Standing” Doctrine

A recent decision from the Delaware Supreme Court is a reminder that the members of a mandatory class—one in which the class isn’t guaranteed opt-out rights—sometimes may be given the right to opt out in order to pursue their own individual actions.

The decision, In re Celera Corp. Shareholder Litigation (pdf), addressed a class settlement of claims that the directors of Celera Corp. had breached their fiduciary duties in agreeing to a merger with Quest Diagnostics. The settlement promised “therapeutic benefits” to the class of Celera shareholders, such as additional disclosures and changes to the merger agreement that made it
Continue Reading Can Members of a Mandatory Class Action Opt Out?

On Friday, the Supreme Court granted review in three consolidated cases: Chadbourne & Parke LLP v. Troice, No. 12-79, Willis of Colorado v. Troice, No. 12-86, and Proskauer Rose LLP v. Troice, No. 12-88. The Court’s decision will clarify when the federal Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act (“SLUSA”) preempts state-law securities class actions.

After Congress tightened the pleading and proof requirements for class actions under the federal securities laws in 1996 in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act, plaintiffs fled to state court and started bringing securities class actions under state law. In response to this evasion,
Continue Reading Supreme Court to Decide Scope of Preemption of State-Law Securities Class Actions by SLUSA

A few months ago, I posted about a Second Circuit decision that threatens to open the floodgates to securities class actions, NECA-IBEW Health & Welfare Fund v. Goldman Sachs & Co., 693 F.3d 145 (2d Cir. 2012).  In that decision, the Second Circuit ruled that even though a plaintiff in an individual action may assert securities claims only as to securities that it purchased, a plaintiff may bring a class action involving securities that it did not purchase.  According to the Second Circuit, a plaintiff has “class standing” to bring such claims if it purchased at least one of
Continue Reading DRI Amicus Brief Argues That Second Circuit’s Expansive View Of “Class Standing” In Securities Cases Should Be Rejected

The Supreme Court’s 2012-13 term is shaping up to be an important one for class action law.  Last month, the Court heard argument on the same day in two potentially significant cases. Comcast Corp. v. Behrend concerns whether plaintiffs may obtain class certification without introducing admissible evidence (including expert testimony) that damages can be proven on a class-wide basis.  And the question in Amgen Inc. v. Connecticut Retirement Plans and Trust Funds is whether in a securities fraud case materiality must be established at the class-certification stage to obtain the crucial presumption of reliance. My colleague Archis Parasharami and I
Continue Reading Supreme Court Roundup: The Oral Arguments in Comcast and Amgen

One oddity of the law in the Second Circuit is the unbalanced standard of review that the court sometimes applies to class certification decisions. On a dozen or so occasions over the last twenty years, the Second Circuit has proclaimed that it is “noticeably less deferential when the district court has denied class status than when it has certified a class.” Shahriar v. Smith & Wollensky Restaurant Group, Inc., 659 F.3d 234, 250 (2d Cir. 2011); see also, e.g., Brown v. Kelly, 609 F.3d 467, 485 (2d Cir. 2010). But the Second Circuit has never explained
Continue Reading Is The Second Circuit Placing A Thumb On The Scale When It Reviews Orders Granting Class Certification?