Securities Litigation

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One of the most watched and commented on corporate and securities litigation trends over the last several years has been the rise of management liability related lawsuits arising from cybersecurity-related incidents. While there has never been the volume of cases that some commentators expected, there have been a number of cases filed. The latest of these lawsuits is the securities class action lawsuit filed this week against FedEx, in which the plaintiff shareholder alleges the company did not fully disclose the extent of the disruption at its European operation after it was hit with the NotPetya malware virus in June 2017. A number of the allegations in the new FedEx complaint are similar to those raised in prior cybersecurity-related securities suit, suggesting some of the factors that might lead to this type of cybersecurity follow-on lawsuit. A copy of the complaint, filed in the Southern District of New York on June 26, 2019, can be found here.
Continue Reading FedEx Hit with Cyber Attack-Related Securities Suit

As I noted in a recent post, the securities class action lawsuit pending against Toshiba raises the question of whether or not the U.S. securities laws apply to transactions in unsponsored American Depository Receipts (ADRs). The company’s petition to the U.S. Supreme Court posed the larger question of whether there are exceptions to the second-prong of the Morrison standard holding that the U.S. securities laws apply to domestic transactions in securities. A number of organizations and even governments filed amicus briefs urging the Court to take up the case. However, in a June 24, 2019, the Court denied the company’s petition, sending the case back to the lower courts and, as discussed below, leaving behind several unanswered questions.
Continue Reading U.S. Supreme Court Denies Cert in Toshiba Unsponsored ADRs Securities Suit

Nessim Mezrahi

In the following guest post, Nessim Mezrahi, cofounder and CEO of SAR, a securities class action data analytics and software company, takes a look at possible defenses to securities class action lawsuits that corporate defendants may have based on analysis of the claimed stock price declines involved. A version of this article previously appeared on Law 360. I would like to thank Nessim for allowing me to publish his article as a guest post on this site. I welcome guest post submissions from responsible authors on topics of interest to this blog’s readers. Please contact me directly if you would like to submit a guest post. Here is Nessim’s article.
Continue Reading Guest Post: An Analytical Approach To Defending Securities Class Claims

Priya Cherian Huskins

In a recent post, I took a look at the rise in the number of state court securities class action lawsuits that have been filed in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the Cyan case. In the following guest post, Priya Cherian Huskins of Woodruff Sawyer & Co. takes a deeper look at the state court securities class action data to assess the extent of the threat of state court securities class action litigation relating to follow-on offerings. A version of this article was previously published in Woodruff-Sawyer’s D&O Notebook.  I would like to thank Priya for her willingness to allow me to publish her article as a guest post on this site. I welcome guest post submissions from responsible authors on topics of interest to this blog’s readers. Please contact me directly if you would like to submit a guest post. Here is Priya’s article.
Continue Reading Guest Post: Is it Really that Bad? Follow-On Offerings and Section 11 Suits in State Court

I have been fortunate in recent years to be able to travel around the world and to speak to D&O insurance professionals in a wide variety of different countries. One recurring question I get in these meetings has to do with non-U.S. companies that have Level I American Depository Receipts (ADRs) trading in the U.S. The question is usually something along the lines of – “these Level 1 ADR companies don’t have U.S. securities litigation exposure, right?” This question always puzzles me, given the several high profile cases in recent years (discussed below) demonstrating that —  while there may be  an interesting question between sponsored and unsponsored ADRs — transactions in Level 1 ADRs certainly can be subject to the U.S. securities litigation.  
Continue Reading The U.S. Securities Litigation Exposure of Non-U.S. Companies with Level I ADRs

Regular readers of this blog know that the statistics surrounding U.S. securities litigation in recent years are nothing short of alarming, including, for example, both record numbers of lawsuits and record percentages of listed companies sued. Severity trends are concerning as well. All of these trends are exacerbated by the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2018 Cyan decision, which opens companies conducting securities offerings to multiple, conflicting lawsuits in state and federal court. Given these trends, it is hardly surprising that there have been renewed calls from business groups for securities class action litigation reform. Now, Chubb, a leading global insurer, has added its voice to the calls for reform. In an interesting June 11, 2019 paper entitled “From Nuisance to Menace: The Rising Tide of Securities Class Action Litigation” (here), the company details the extent of the current securities litigation mess and sets forth a number of proposals for securities litigation reform. 
Continue Reading Chubb Sounds Securities Litigation Alarm, Calls for Reform

In a little noticed-development last week, the U.S. Supreme Court denied the petition for a writ of certiorari in Hagan v. Khoja, in which former officials of a bankrupt pharmaceutical company sought to have the Court review a decision by the Ninth Circuit to revive a securities class action lawsuit against them. Had the petition been granted, the Court would have been called upon to consider the controversial question of whether public companies have a duty to update prior disclosures that were accurate when made. The Court’s cert denial leaves the Ninth Circuit’s ruling standing and the questions surrounding the existence and requirements of a duty to update remain unsettled. The Court’s May 20, 2019 order can be found here.  
Continue Reading Supreme Court Denies Cert Petition in Duty to Update Case

In a recent post, I commented on the settlement of a state court securities class action lawsuit relating to the defendant company’s secondary offering, suggesting in the post among other things that the state court suit was noteworthy because it was the first state court secondary offering-related securities suit of which I was aware. In response to the post, I received a helpful and informative email from my friends at Stanford Securities Litigation Analytics, who pointed out that over time there actually have been quite a number of state court secondary offering-related securities suits. Following their direction, I was able to research this issue further myself using their site’s analytic tools and confirm a number of their observations to me about these kinds of lawsuits. Turns out, as they informed me, there have in fact been a number of state court secondary offering-related securities lawsuits, both pre- and post-Cyan, as set out below. This information could have significant implications both for companies conducting secondary offerings and for their D&O insurers.
Continue Reading More About State Court Secondary Offering-Related Securities Class Action Suits

One of the more interesting developments in the financial markets this year has been the number of so-called “unicorns” that have completed their IPOs. Among others, Uber, Lyft and Pinterest made their debut in recent weeks. Some of these companies have stumbled as they began trading, and indeed some have already been sued in securities class action lawsuits (as I noted here with respect to Lyft). Among the companies completing IPOs in recent weeks is Jumia Technologies AG, an African e-commerce platform that has been called Africa’s first unicorn, whose American Depositary Shares began trading on the NYSE on April 12, 2019. Even though Jumia’s securities have been trading barely a month, the company has been hit with a securities lawsuit, following a short-seller’s report about the company.
Continue Reading Recent African e-Commerce IPO Draws Securities Lawsuit

As readers will recall, in March 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court held in the Cyan case that state courts retain concurrent jurisdiction for liability actions under the Securities Act of 1933. Commentators have correctly identified this decision as primarily of concern to IPO companies. However, one question I regularly get is whether Cyan could mean that companies conducting secondary offerings could also face state court class action securities litigation. I have usually answered this question by saying that while it is theoretically possible, for a number of reasons I thought it was relatively unlikely. Besides, I usually have added, I am not aware of any class action lawsuits in which claimants have filed ’33 Act claims relating to a secondary offering in state court. That is, I was not aware – until now.
Continue Reading Secondary Offerings and State Court Securities Suits