Earlier this year three large U.S. banks failed in a sequence of events that has been called The Banking Crisis of 2023. While federal regulators acted decisively and forcefully to prevent the bank failures from triggering a contagion event, the underlying problems that caused the three banks to fail continued to trouble many other U.S. lending institutions. Among the banks that faced continued challenges and continuing questions is the California-based bank Pac West, which in July 2023 announced that as a way to try to deal with its woes it was being acquired by the Bank of California. Now, a plaintiff shareholder has filed a securities class action lawsuit against Pac West and certain of its directors and officers alleging misrepresentations in connection with the events surrounding the other banks’ failures ad leading up to the July merger. The new lawsuit is the latest example of the ways in which ongoing issues in the banking sector are leading to securities class action lawsuit filings. A copy of the new complaint can be found here.

Continue Reading Regional Bank Hit with Banking Crisis-Related Securities Suit

Earlier this year, challenges arising from rising interest rates, as well as concerns surrounding liquidity and other issues, led to three of the largest banking failures in U.S. history. The three that failed were not the only banks facing challenges in the rising interest rate environment, and while there have been no further failures since May, questions from the turbulence earlier this year remain for many banks. Now, in a sign that these kinds of challenges and questions can lead to securities litigation even in the absence of bank failure, a plaintiff shareholder has filed a securities class action lawsuit against KeyCorp (the bank holding company of KeyBank) after questions about the bank’s liquidity and interest rate income in a rising interest rate environment caused a drop in the company’s share price. A copy of the August 4, 2023, complaint filed against Key can be found here.

Continue Reading Liquidity and Interest Income Concerns Draw Securities Suit Against Bank

Even though the COVID-19 pandemic is now into its fourth year, plaintiffs’ lawyers continue to file pandemic-related securities class action lawsuits, increasingly in conjunction with allegations involving other macroeconomic factors, such as rising interest rates, economic inflation, supply chain disruption, and labor supply shortages. In the latest example of litigation of this type, last week plaintiffs’ lawyers filed a securities class action lawsuit against tool maker Stanley Black & Decker, alleging that the company misled investors that the pandemic-fueled surge in demand for the company’s product would continue even as conditions changed. A copy of the March 24, 2023, complaint against the company can be found here.

Continue Reading Stanley Black & Decker Hit with COVID-Related Securities Suit

Nessim Mezrahi
Stephen Sigrist

In the following guest post, Nessim Mezrahi and Stephen Sigrist take a look at a variety of economic and marketplace factors that they suggest may lead to securities litigation lawsuit filings in 2023, particularly with respect to IPO companies. Mezrahi is co-founder and CEO and Sigrist is Senior Vice President of Data Science at SAR LLC. A version of this article previously was published on Law360. I would like to thank the authors for allowing me to publish their article on my 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’ article.

Continue Reading Guest Post: Securities Class Actions May Spur IPO Investigations in 2023