One of the procedural innovations the PSLRA introduced was the requirement that plaintiffs’ counsel who file a securities class action lawsuit complaint must issue a press release announcing the complaint’s filing and notifying prospective class members of the opportunity to seek to become lead plaintiff. Plaintiffs’ lawyers quickly realized the potential publicity value for them
Dividend recapitalization is a tool that enables private equity firms to extract liquidity from portfolio companies without the need to complete a sale or IPO. In the following guest post, the authors explore this funding technique, which is not without its risks and exposures and which may raise important insurance issues as well. This article is co-authored by Sarah Abrams, Head of Professional Liability Claims, Bowhead Specialty Underwriters, Inc., Elan Kandel, Member, Bailey Cavalieri LLC and James Talbert, Associate, Bailey Cavalieri LLC. I would like to thank the authors 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 authors’ article.Continue Reading Dividend Recaps: Potential Risks for Private Equity Firms and Their Insurers
Securities class action litigation activity involving IPO companies recently has been a significant concern, for the companies themselves as well as for their insurers. In the following guest post, Stanford Law School Professor Michael Klausner and Jason Hegland, Stone Kalisa, and Sam Curry of Stanford Securities Litigation Analytics take a look at the data surrounding IPO-related securities litigation. I would like to thank the authors 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 authors’ article.
Continue Reading Guest Post: IPO Litigation Risk
Electric vehicle battery company Romeo Power, which became a publicly traded company through a December 2020 merger with a SPAC, has been hit with a securities class action lawsuit following a share price decline after its announcement of a disruption in its supply chain. The new lawsuit is interesting both because of the SPAC angle and because it resulted from supply chain issues. The new lawsuit against Romeo Power was, in fact, one of two securities suits filed last week arising out of supply chain disruption. As discussed below, supply chain disruption could represent an emerging new area of corporate and securities litigation exposure. I also discuss below the fact that the new lawsuit involves yet another de-SPAC company in the electric vehicle industry
Continue Reading Tracking Two Emerging Securities Litigation Trends: SPACs and Supply Chain Disruption
2020 has been called “the year of the SPAC.” (2020 has been called a lot of other things as well, but for purposes of this blog post, I am going to focus on the SPAC-related issues.) The reason for the fanfare about Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) is that there has been a wave of SPAC offerings this year, raising tens of billions of dollars of capital. While the rush to conduct SPAC offerings has at times started to feel like a stampede, there are in fact questions being raised about at least some SPAC transactions. As discussed below, there has been a series of recent lawsuits involving SPACs, and regulators have made it clear that they are concerned about some features of some SPAC transactions. These recent developments suggest that some trouble could be brewing in SPAC-Land.
Continue Reading Rain on the SPAC Parade?