In prior posts, I have detailed the havoc that the U.S. Supreme Court’s March 2018 decision in the Cyan case has wrought, as Securities Act liability class action defendants find themselves facing multiple parallel suits in both federal and state court. A recent ruling in a consolidated federal court action involving the failed Miller Energy … Continue Reading
As observers have discussed the kinds of problems that the U.S. Supreme Court’s Cyan decision can create, specific concerns have included the possibility of parallel state and federal court litigation, and even the possibility of parallel litigation in multiple states. In the course of the discussion of these issues, these litigation risks might have seemed … Continue Reading
In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s March 2018 Cyan decision, in which the Court affirmed that state court’s retain concurrent jurisdiction for liability action under the ’33 Act, plaintiffs’ lawyers have initiated a number of Section 11 actions in the courts of a number of states. This new wave of state court Securities … Continue Reading
After the U.S. Supreme Court’s March 2018 decision in the Cyan case that state courts retain concurrent jurisdiction for ’33 Act liability actions, one idea that circulated was that companies could avoid securities class action lawsuits in state court by adopting a charter provision designating a federal forum for these kinds of suits. Unfortunately, in … Continue Reading
In numerous prior posts on this site (for example, here), I have written about the problems caused by the U.S. Supreme Court’s March 2018 decision in Cyan, Inc. v. Beaver County Employees Retirement Fund. In the following guest post, Nessim Mezrahi, cofounder and CEO of SAR, a securities class action data analytics and software company, … Continue Reading
As a result of the U.S. Supreme Court’s March 2018 Cyan decision, in which the Court ruled that state courts retain concurrent jurisdiction over ’33 Act liability actions, companies issuing shares now face the risk of having to face parallel securities litigation in state and federal court. Among the many problems this risk poses is … Continue Reading
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 … Continue Reading
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 … Continue Reading
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 … Continue Reading
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 … Continue Reading
Last fall, the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform issued a paper detailing the ways in which the U.S. securities class action litigation system is “spinning out of control,” and calling for a renewed wave of securities litigation reform. In a new paper, entitled “Containing the Contagion: Proposals to Reform the Broken Securities Class Action … Continue Reading
As I noted at the time (here), on December 19, 2018, Delaware Vice Chancellor Later held that under Delaware law, a corporate charter provision specifying that liability actions under Section 11 of the Securities Act of 1934 must be brought in federal court are invalid and ineffective. A copy of Laster’s opinion in Sciabacucchi v. … Continue Reading
As I noted in prior posts, 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. This development has been regarded as primarily a concern for IPO companies. However, as discussed in the attached guest from Priya Cherian … Continue Reading
When the U.S. Supreme Court confirmed in its March 2018 Cyan decision that state courts retain concurrent jurisdiction over ’33 Act liability actions, commentators suggested that plaintiffs’ lawyers would opt to pursue Section 11 claims in state court, either in preference to or in addition to parallel federal court actions. Indeed, in many lawsuits filed … Continue Reading
As I discussed in a post last week, on March 20, 2018 the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held in Cyan, Inc. v. Beaver County Employees Retirement Fund that the Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act of 1998 (SLUSA) did not eliminate state courts’ concurrent jurisdiction to hear liability lawsuits alleging only violations of the Securities Act … Continue Reading