In its June 2017 decision in Kokesh v. SEC (discussed here), the U.S. Supreme Court held that disgorgement in an SEC enforcement action represents a “penalty,” and therefore a SEC enforcement action claim for disgorgement is subject to a five-year statute of limitation. The Court emphasized that it was only deciding the statute of limitations issue, and was emphatically not reaching the larger issue of whether the SEC has the proper authority to order disgorgement in enforcement proceeding. As discussed here, last November, in the case of Liu v. SEC, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to take up the larger issue to determine whether or not the SEC may seek may seek and obtain disgorgement as “equitable relief” for a securities law violation. On June 22, 2020, the Supreme Court issues its opinion in the Liu case. As discussed below in a guest post written by David Topol of the Wiley law firm, the court has ruled that the SEC may collect disgorgements as “equitable relief,” subject to important constraint. I would like to thank David 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 David’s article. Continue Reading Guest Post: Liu v. SEC: What Is “Disgorgement”?
Many traditional liability insurance policies contain provisions specifying that in the event of a claim the insurer has the duty to defend the insured. However, many management liability insurance policies do not impose a duty on the insurer to defend the insured; rather, these policies usually provide that insureds will defend themselves, with the obligation on the insurer to advance defense costs as they are incurred, subject to all of the policy’s terms and conditions. However, because defense obligations under the more traditional duty to defend arrangement are well established and more familiar to many courts, courts sometimes attempt to resolve issues arising under duty to advance policies by referring to principles established with regard to duty to defend policies.
A plaintiff shareholder has filed a securities class action lawsuit against a diagnostic testing company alleging that the company misrepresented the accuracy of its COVID-19 antibody test. The company’s share price, which had risen on the news of the FDA’s authorization of the company’s test, declined after the FDA announced it was revoking the authorization due to performance concerns with the accuracy of the test. As detailed further below, this new lawsuit is the latest in a series of securities suits that have been filed since the coronavirus outbreak began against companies that are alleged to have made misrepresentations concerning their ability to provide coronavirus-related therapies, testing, or equipment. 
In a recent decision in an insurance coverage dispute, a federal court applying Puerto Rico law concluded that there was no coverage under a management liability insurance policy for a discrimination claim that had first been made prior to the policy period of the claims made policy at issue, and that notice of the claim was untimely as well. The court’s conclusion is in a sense unremarkable. What is worth considering about the ruling is how often these same problems recur, as discussed below. The District of Puerto Rico’s May 28, 2020 opinion can be found 
In the latest securities class action lawsuit alleging that the defendant company tried to position itself to investors as able to profit from the coronavirus outbreak, a plaintiff shareholder has filed a securities suit against a company that claimed to have developed COVID-19 tests that were 100% accurate. The plaintiff alleges company’s share price soared based on the company’s statements, but later fell when news reports and regulator statements began to circulate casting doubt on the company’s claimed testing accuracy. A copy of the June 15, 2020 complaint filed against Co-Diagnostics, Inc. can be found 
A lot has happened since early March, 
The troubled deal in which Advent International Corporation was to acquire cybersecurity firm Forescout Technologies, Inc. is already the subject of litigation pending in Delaware Chancery Court, and indeed a trial in the Delaware merger dispute case is 
In prior enforcement actions the agency filed in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, the SEC has made it clear that it intends to target companies and individuals that are seeking to secure gains by misrepresenting to investors the companies’ ability to profit from the pandemic. On June 9, 2020, the SEC filed what is the latest of these pandemic-related enforcement actions. In its complaint, the agency alleges that a penny stock trader engaged in a fraudulent pump-and-dump scheme involving the stock of a biotechnology company. The SEC alleges he drove the company’s share price by making hundreds of false statements about the company in an online forum, and then after the company’s share price rose, he sold his stock for significant profits. 
