One of the hot topics in the world of corporate and securities litigation in recent years has been the use of forum selection bylaws as a way for companies to try to manage their litigation risk by steering corporate and securities litigation to a specified forum. Courts have largely upheld these provisions. For example, as noted in a recent post, an en banc ruling of the Ninth Circuit dismissed a plaintiff’s claim against the board of The Gap in reliance on a forum selection clause in the company’s bylaws, even though the dismissal effectively deprived the plaintiff of a forum for its derivative Section 14(a) claims.

Now in a further development, a federal district court judge, again in a reliance on a forum selection clause, has granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss in a SolarWinds cyber incident-related derivative suit, even though the dismissal means that the plaintiff has no forum in which to assert his derivative Exchange Act claims – most notably including the plaintiff’s derivative claims under Section 10(b). At a minimum, the ruling expands the reach of what a forum selection clause may achieve, and it possibly could increase the chances that these issues ultimately wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court. A copy of the court’s July 12, 2023, order in the federal court derivative lawsuit can be found here. A July 14, 2023, post on CorporateCounsel.net about the ruling can be found here.Continue Reading Federal Court Derivative Suit Dismissed Based on Forum Selection Clause, Despite Exchange Act Claims

paul weiss largeAmong the decisions that the Supreme Court issued this past Monday was its unanimous ruling in Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc. v. Manning (here), in which the Court held that the ’34 Act’s  exclusive federal jurisdiction provisions do not preclude a claimant from pursuing state law securities claims in state court.  In the following guest post, attorneys from the Paul Weiss law firm take a look at the Court’s decision in the case and discuss its implications. I would like to thank the Paul Weiss attorneys for allowing me to publish their 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 Paul Weiss attorneys’ guest post.
Continue Reading Guest Post: Supreme Court Rejects Federal Jurisdiction over State Law Claims that Do Not Necessarily Raise Exchange Act Issues