netherlandsAs the rise of collective investor actions has gone global, one of the questions that has arisen is whether a country other than the U.S. would become a preferred forum in which investors might pursue their claims, even investors from outside the forum country. Australia is among the countries that have been suggested. Another country that has comes up in this conversation is The Netherlands, which recently was the location of a massive investor settlement. Investors angered by several high profile scandals in other countries have also filed claims in The Netherlands. All of these developments have added to the suggestion that The Netherlands may be becoming a preferred forum for investor actions from around the world.

However, a recent court decision in an investor action filed in the Netherlands against BP and arising out of the Deepwater Horizon platform disaster may suggest that Netherlands collective action procedures may not be available for  investors seeking to recover purely financial losses where the alleged wrongdoing took place outside the Netherlands and there are no other factors connecting the case to Netherlands.
Continue Reading Dutch Court Dismisses Collective Investor Action Against BP on Jurisdictional Grounds

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Michael J. Biles

In the following guest post, Michael J. Biles of the King & Spalding law firm takes a look at the analysis of the materialization-of-the-risk issues in the Fifth Circuit’s September 8, 2015 decision in the BP Deepwater Horizon securities class action lawsuit. As Michael asserts below, the Fifth Circuit’s decision opinion essentially removes the risk of materialization-of-the-risk cases in the Fifth Circuit.

I would like to thank Mike for his willingness to publish his article on my site. I welcome guest post submissions from responsible authors on topics of interest to readers of this site. Please contact me directly if you are interested in submitting a guest post. Here is Michael’s guest post.

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Materialization-of-the-risk cases are a favorite of the securities class action plaintiffs’ bar.  The basic theory of fraud in these cases is that a company misrepresented or withheld information, causing the market to miscalculate the company’s exposure to a particular risk.  Every company is susceptible to risks, whether it be natural or man-made disasters, competition, labor disputes, technological obsolescence, currency fluctuations, supply-chain disruptions, etc. –the risks are endless.  When a company’s stock price declines following a disclosure that you-name-the-risk has materialized – as every company must do on occasion – plaintiffs’ lawyers will scour the company’s prior disclosures concerning the risk and allege (with the benefit of hindsight) that the company and its executives did not accurately explain the company’s exposure to the risk.  The damages in such cases are usually easy to calculate – plaintiffs say that the stock was inflated by the amount of the share price decline following the revelation of the risk.  And if the case is certified as a class action, the damages typically run in the hundreds of millions, if not billions.

The securities class action filed against BP plc following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill is a classic materialization-of-the-risk  case.  Before the spill, according to plaintiffs, BP touted the company’s safety plans and procedures as being more advanced on paper than they were in practice.  These pre-spill statements lulled the market into believing that BP was a safer company than it actually was.  According to plaintiffs, BP thus understated the risk of the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe, and when that risk materialized, investors were damaged by the full value of the decline in BP stock caused by the materialization of the risk of the spill.  The Fifth Circuit recently affirmed the district court’s order denying class certification of plaintiffs’ materialization-of-the-risk claims.[1]  Ludlow v. BP, PLC, — F.3d —, 2015 WL 5235010 (5th Cir. Sept. 8, 2015).  This opinion essentially removes the risk of materialization-of-the-risk cases in the Fifth Circuit.
Continue Reading Guest Post: The Fifth Circuit Takes the Risk Out of Materialization-Of-The-Risk Cases

Since the U.S. Supreme Court issued its opinion in Morrison v. National Australia Bank, would-be claimants who purchased shares of a non-U.S. company outside the U.S. have struggled to find a way to pursue their claims in U.S. courts. Among other things, these claimants have tried to avoid Morrison’s federal securities claim-preclusive effect by

In the wake of the disastrous April 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, BP was hit with a wave of litigation from plaintiffs asserting claims of personal injury, wrongful death and property damage. The claimants also included BP shareholders raising allegations that they had been misled regarding BP safety efforts and processes. In a 129-page February