The D&O Diary is on assignment in the Asia Pacific region this week, with a first stop in the beautiful Australian city of Sydney. Even though it was still Southern Hemisphere late winter/early spring while I was in Australia, the weather was beautiful and even summerlike. I was fortunate that my meeting schedule in Sydney allowed me a little bit of time to enjoy the weather and the sunshine, as the pictures below reflect. Continue Reading Sydney
In the latest development in a short but very interesting sequence of events in a recently filed SPAC-related securities lawsuit, a federal district court judge in the Southern District of Florida has directed a magistrate judge to consider whether the plaintiff’s firm that filed the lawsuit must show cause that it didn’t violate and bar or local rules in allegedly soliciting the plaintiff on whose behalf the law firm filed the complaint.Continue Reading Plaintiff Law Firm’s Client Solicitation Practices to Face Scrutiny
As the phenomenon of ESG-related litigation has developed and evolved in recent months, it has unfolded that the lawsuits are not, as was expected, being filed against ESG laggards, but instead are being filed against companies that were proactive on ESG-related issues. One of the cases illustrating this development is the securities lawsuit filed against the consumer products company Unilever, based on allegations that the company had failed to disclose a resolution passed by the independent board of its Ben and Jerry’s subsidiary to end ice cream sales in occupied Israeli territories. On August 29, 2023, In a ruling that suggests that these kinds of ESG-related cases could face challenges, Southern District of New York Judge Lorna Schofield granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss the lawsuit, on the grounds that the plaintiff had failed to sufficiently plead scienter. A copy of the August 29 opinion and order can be found here.Continue Reading ESG-Related Suit Against Unilever Based on Ben & Jerry’s Board’s Resolution Dismissed
In my recent roundup of the top stories in the world of directors’ and officers’ liability and insurance, I noted that a host of macroeconomic factors – such as supply chain disruptions and labor supply constraints — continue to weigh on companies and, in some instances, translate into securities class action litigation. I have also noted in numerous prior posts how COVID-19 has itself resulted in securities lawsuit filings. In the latest example of a securities suit filing resulting from these various phenomena, last week a shareholder plaintiff filed a securities lawsuit against the robotic aircraft systems development and service company AeroVironment after the company delivered disappointing results due to supply chain woes resulting from COVID-19. The complaint is both representative of these types of cases and illustrative of how these kinds of concerns, even after a significant time lag, can result in a current securities lawsuit filing. A copy of the plaintiff’s August 30, 2023, complaint can be found here.Continue Reading Robotic Aircraft Company Hit with COVID-19 and Supply Chain-Related Securities Suit
Every year after Labor Day, I take a step back to survey the most important current trends and developments in the world of Directors’ and Officers’ liability and insurance. This year’s review is set out below. As the following discussion shows, this is a particularly interesting time in the world of D&O.Continue Reading What to Watch in the World of D&O