What Warren Buffett has accomplished at the head of Berkshire Hathaway is nothing short of astonishing. Not only has he built a massive company, but he has done it while maintaining an unparalleled reputation for business integrity. The man is an American business icon. He is also mortal. Buffett is now 84 years old. The
More Shareholder Litigation Involving Corporate Inversion Transactions
One of the more distinctive business trends in recent months has been the surge of so-called corporate inversion transactions, in which a domestic U.S. company merges with a non-U.S. company, with the the successor company to be based in the foreign country in order to take advantage of a more favorable corporate tax regime. These
A Tale of Two FCPA Follow-On Securities Lawsuits
I have frequently noted in prior posts that a frequent development after a company announces the existence of an FCPA investigation is the filing of a follow on civil action (refer, for example, here). But while plaintiffs’ lawyers often are eager to file these lawsuits, in many instances they prove to be unsuccessful (as
Maybe This Really is the Last of the Mug Shots
As reflected in an August blog post (here), I had thought that the ever-popular D&O Diary mug shot series had finally come to end. But even after what seemed to be the final installment, I received even more mug shots from other readers. I have been holding onto these late-arriving pictures for a
Fifth Circuit Reverses District Court, Holds Multiple Disclosures Establish Loss Causation Even if No Single Disclosure Alone Sufficient
A recurring question arising in class action securities litigation is what constitutes a “corrective disclosure” for purposes of satisfying the requirements for pleading loss causation. In the Amedisys securities class action litigation, the district court had examined the five partial disclosures on which the plaintiff sought to rely to establish loss causation and held
Foreign Investors Who Bought BP Shares Overseas Can Pursue English Law Claims in U.S. Court
The U.S. Supreme Court’s July 2010 decision in Morrison v. National Australia Bank seemed to sound the death knell for so-called “f-cubed” litigation – that is, lawsuits brought in U.S. courts under the U.S. securities laws by foreign investors who bought their shares in a foreign company on a foreign exchange. However, in an interesting
Defendants Unable to Establish Absence of Price Impact, Class Certification Granted
In its long-awaited June 2014 decision in the Halliburton case, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to jettison the fraud on the market theory on which the presumption of reliance is based, but it did provide that defendants could attempt to rebut the presumption of reliance by showing that the alleged misrepresentation that is the basis
PLUS London Symposium Notes
I was fortunate this past week to be a part of the very successful Regional Professional Liability Symposium of the Professional Liability Underwriting Society (PLUS) in London. About 180 people attended the sold out event, which featured a key note address from David Bermingham, one of the NatWest Three. The event was both well-attended and
Supreme Court Will Not Consider the Securities Act Statute of Repose Issue in the Indy Mac Case After All
As I had noted on this blog (here), one of the important securities law cases on the U.S. Supreme Court’s docket for the upcoming term involved the failed IndyMac bank. The Court had granted cert in the case to decide whether the three-year limitations period in Section 13 of the ’33 Act may
The Travel Issue: Edinburgh Edition
The D&O Diary is on assignment in the United Kingdom this week, with the first stop in the venerable city of Edinburgh, for meetings and an event. Due to flight delays, cancellations and missed connections, my visit to Scotland’s capital city was cut short by a day, which compressed both my meetings and my opportunity