In what circumstances should you be permitted to invest your retirement savings in your own employer’s stock? We have blogged before about an ERISA class action pending at the Supreme Court regarding when plan fiduciaries must prevent participants from investing in employer stock. After the Solicitor General filed an amicus brief (pdf) asking the Court to broaden its inquiry, the case was poised to challenge a bedrock of ERISA stock-drop actions—a presumption that fiduciaries act prudently when investing in employer stock.

On Friday, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in the case, Fifth Third Bancorp v. Dudenhoeffer, No. 12-751, but
Continue Reading Supreme Court Picks Up ERISA Stock-Drop Case: What’s Next?

Earlier today, the U.S. Supreme Court granted review in Halliburton Co. v . Erica P. John Fund, No. 13-317, to address an important question affecting securities class actions: whether the “fraud-on-the market” presumption created by the Court in Basic, Inc. v. Levinson remains viable in light of new developments—both in economic thinking and in the marketplace—over the 25 years since Basic was decided.

Where did the fraud on the market presumption come from? Here are the basics (pun intended). The vast majority of securities fraud class actions are brought under a private right of action that was not created
Continue Reading Supreme Court Will Address “Fraud-On-The-Market” Presumption in Securities Class Actions

Under the American Pipe rule, in federal court the filing of a class action tolls the statute of limitations for would-be class members. Otherwise, the Supreme Court reasoned in American Pipe, putative class members would have to intervene or file their own individual actions during the pendency of the class action in case class certification is denied to avoid having their claims become time-barred.

But does the American Pipe rule also apply to statutes of repose, which create an absolute right to be free from liability after a certain time frame? District courts had reached conflicting decisions on
Continue Reading Class Action Filing Doesn’t Toll Statute of Repose for Securities Claims, Says Second Circuit

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?

We’ve been blogging about the Second Circuit’s decision in NECA-IBEW Health & Welfare Fund v. Goldman Sachs (pdf), which held that a named plaintiff in a securities fraud suit might have standing in some situations to assert class action claims regarding securities that he or she never purchased. Yesterday, the Supreme Court denied (pdf) Goldman’s petition for certiorari (pdf) in that case. We’ll continue reporting on the aftermath of the Second Circuit’s decision.

In the meantime, defendants facing these sorts of claims should remember that the Second Circuit’s novel standing test requires that the claims regarding the unpurchased securities raise
Continue Reading Supreme Court Denies Review In NECA-IBEW Case

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

According to a recent report authored by Cornerstone Research and the Stanford Law School Securities Class Action Clearinghouse, Securities Class Action Filings—2012 Year in Review (pdf), 19 percent fewer securities fraud class actions were filed in federal court in 2012 than in 2011. The 152 new class actions filed in 2012 is the second-lowest such number in the last 16 years.
Continue Reading Cornerstone and Stanford Law School Issue Report On Securities Class Actions

A number of courts recently have weighed in on a question we’ve blogged before—whether lawsuits by state attorneys general seeking restitution on behalf of private citizens are subject to removal under the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 (pdf) (“CAFA”). These rulings have broad implications for the litigation of these quasi-class actions.  They also are of substantial importance to determining whether securities fraud actions filed by state attorneys general are precluded by the federal Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act of 1998 (pdf) (“SLUSA”).
Continue Reading Are Quasi-Class Action Suits By State AGs Removable Under CAFA (Or, For Securities Fraud Cases, Barred By SLUSA)?