As has been well-documented on this site, 2017 was an extraordinary year for securities class action lawsuit filings, with a record number of new lawsuits filed at a record rate. Among the important contributing factors to the significant volume of securities suit filings during the year was the volume of lawsuits filed against life sciences companies. The significance of the litigation activity against biopharma companies, a subset of the overall life sciences sector, was the subject of a detailed and precise analysis in a guest post earlier this week.

 

There is still the question of the meaning of large volume of litigation involving life sciences companies generally.  According to the latest annual analysis from the Dechert law firm, the number of securities lawsuits filed against life sciences companies in 2017 increased 30% from the previous year, and increased more than 225% from only five years earlier. The law firm’s February 8, 2018 report entitled “Developments in Securities Fraud Class Actions Against U.S. Life Sciences Companies: 2017 Edition” can be found here. Continue Reading A Detailed Look at 2017 Securities Litigation Involving Life Sciences Companies

Amidst the fallout following the latest high-profile set of revelations of sexual misconduct at the highest levels of business, the media, and politics, Steve Wynn has resigned his position as Chairman and CEO of Wynn Resorts. However, as we have seen with in other instances of this type of high profile sexual misconduct, the accountability process at Wynn Resorts will not be limited to attempting to hold Wynn himself to account, but may include other senior company officials as well. According to a lawsuit filed today in Nevada state court,  officials at Wynn’s company allegedly knew for years of his sexual misconduct and failed to investigate. Continue Reading Investor Files Sexual Misconduct-Related D&O Claim Against Wynn Resorts Board

 The astonishing bitcoin bubble may have burst over the last several days. From its intraday peak in December 2017 of $19,783, the price for bitcoin had fallen as of Saturday to $8,524, a decline of over 60%. (Price declines continued on Monday.) Bitcoin’s price has fallen before and it has generally proven to be volatile. The price may yet escalate again. But if it has always been hard to specify a reason for the phenomenal price movements of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, there certainly have been recent developments aplenty to undermine the price for these digital assets. Continue Reading A Multitude of Cryptocurrency Developments

It is now a commonplace observation in the D&O arena that life sciences companies – and in particular small biopharma companies – are frequent targets of securities class action lawsuits. As a result of these observations about claims frequency, biopharma companies often pay more than other kinds of companies for their D&O insurance. But do these companies really face a heightened securities litigation exposure sufficient to warrant these higher rates? The following guest post examines this question. This post was written by Michael Klausner, Professor of Law, Stanford Law School, Jason Hegland, Executive Director, Stanford Securities Litigation Analytics, and SSLA researchers Carin LeVine, Julia Laurence and Quito Mali Tin-Hung Tsui. I would like to thank the authors for their willingness to allow me to publish their guest 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 the authors’ guest post.

 

Continue Reading Guest Post: Do Small Biopharma Firms Really Face Disproportionate Risk from Securities Class Actions?

At the Thursday afternoon lunch session at the 2017 PLUS D&O Symposium

The D&O Diary was in New York last week for the 2018 version of the Professional Liability Underwriting Society’s annual D&O Symposium. It was great to see so many people who had traveled from near and far to attend the event and to see old friends and make new friends. Continue Reading PLUS D&O Symposium 2017     

In the following guest post, Boris Feldman of the Wilson Sonsini law firm takes a look at important current developments in California shareholder litigation. Boris’s article previously was published as an AIG whitepaper. I would like to thank Boris and AIG for allowing me to publish this article as a guest post. I welcome guest post submissions from responsible authors on topics of interest to this site’s readers. Please contact me directly if you would like to submit a guest post. Here is Boris’s article. Continue Reading Guest Post: Current Developments in Shareholder Litigation in California

Hamburg: Jungfernsteig at dusk, viewed from Lombardsbrücke

The D&O Diary was on assignment this past week in Hamburg, Germany’s second largest city and Europe’s second-largest seaport. January may not be the best time to visit; at 53 degrees northern latitude, Hamburg is chilly and dark this time of the year. Fortunately for me, the weather was not nearly so unkind as had been forecast, and other than a few periods of rain, I most enjoyed chilly sunshine. My northern Germany visit included a brief stop in the Baltic port city of Lübeck. Continue Reading Hamburg and Lübeck

For the second straight year, securities class action lawsuit filings reached record levels in 2017, according to the January 30, 2018 report from Cornerstone Research. According to the report, entitled “Securities Class Action Filings: 2017 Year in Review” (here), securities suit filings during the year reached “unprecedented levels” and companies on U.S. exchanges were more likely to be the subject of a securities suit than in any previous year. Cornerstone Research’s January 30, 2018 press release about the report can be found here. My own analysis of the 2017 securities class action lawsuit filings can be found here. Continue Reading Cornerstone Research: 2017 Securities Lawsuit Filings at “Unprecedented Levels”

Many readers may have noted SEC Jay Clayton’s January 22, 2018 speech about his agency’s scrutiny of cryptocurrencies, as well as the January 24, 2018 opinion piece Clayton wrote in the Wall Street Journal along with his counterpart from the CFTC, J. Christopher Giancarlo. In both statements, Clayton made in clear that the SEC intends to hold gatekeepers to account for their activities in connection with ICOs and cryptocurrencies. In the following guest post, John Reed Stark, President of John Reed Stark Consulting and former Chief of the SEC’s Office of Internet Enforcement, takes a look at the SEC’s cryptocurrency related focus on gatekeeper liability. I would like to thank John for his willingness 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 John’s guest post. Continue Reading Guest Post: Beware ICO Lawyers: As Regulatory Gatekeepers, You’re the Next SEC Target

According to a January 29, 2018 report from NERA Economic Consulting, there was “an explosion” of U.S. federal court securities class action litigation filing in 2017, as new securities suits were filed at a “record pace.” The report, entitled “Record Trends in Securities Class Action Litigation: 2017 Full-Year Review,” can be found here. NERA’s January 27, 2018 press release regarding the report can be found here. My analysis of the 2017 securities class action lawsuit filings can be found here. Continue Reading NERA: 2017 Securities Suits Filed at “Record Pace”