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As part of a continuing series, I have been participating in sessions that the Professional Liability Underwriting Society (PLUS) has organized addressing the potential D&O liability and insurance issues arising out of the COVID-19 outbreak. I have been joined in these recorded sessions by my good friends Carl Metzger of the Goodwin Procter law firm…

In the latest in a series of lawsuits that recently have been filed against corporate directors based on board diversity issues, a Qualcomm shareholder has filed a derivative lawsuit against the company’s board, alleging that the company’s directors violated their duties to the company and shareholders by falling short of stated objectives on diversity and inclusion and by falling to include a single African-American either on the board or among the company’s senior officers. The lawsuit against Qualcomm follows similar lawsuit filed earlier this month against Oracle and Facebook. A copy of the July 17, 2020 complaint against the Qualcomm board can be found here.
Continue Reading Qualcomm Hit with Board Racial Diversity Derivative Lawsuit

Early this spring, when I wrote the first installment in this series of updates about the impact of the coronavirus outbreak on the D&O liability and insurance arena, the general assumption was that the virus would spread for a couple of months during the spring and that by summertime things would be returning to normal. Very few people I know were predicting that when July actually did roll around that the number of confirmed cases, both nationally and globally, would be setting daily record highs. Even as recently as my most recent update last month, there were hopeful signs as the country re-opened for business. Unfortunately, the disease has proven to be more widely-distributed and the outbreak longer-lasting than earlier anticipated, and the expectations about the pandemic’s economic, social, and political impacts have also changed. All of these developments have implications for the pandemic’s impact on the D&O arena as well. In this latest update, I review the the pandemic’s D&O consequences and likely future impact.
Continue Reading COVID-19 and D&O Insurance: July Update

In a recent post (here), I discussed the shareholder derivative suit filed against the board of directors of Oracle Corporation based on the alleged lack of racial diversity on the company’s board. Turns out that in addition to the lawsuit against Oracle’s board, the law firms that filed the Oracle lawsuit also have  filed a shareholder derivative lawsuit against Facebook’s board alleging that the directors had violated their fiduciary duties by their inaction on diversity and inclusion issues; their tolerance of racially discriminatory practices both in its workforce and on its platform; and their failure to take action on hate speech on its platform. Along with the Oracle lawsuit, the new lawsuit against Facebook provides another example of how the current heightened focus on diversity and inclusion issues can translate into D&O claims. A copy of the complaint in the Facebook action can be found here.
Continue Reading Facebook Board Hit with Derivative Lawsuit on Board Diversity and Other Race-Related Issues

There were a record number of securities class action lawsuits filed against tech companies in 2019, according to a new report from Cornerstone Research. The report, entitled “Tech Company Securities Class Action Filings and Settlements: 2015-Q1 2020 Review and Analysis” (here) also shows that the number of securities suit filings against tech companies increased each year compared to the prior year during the four-year period from 2016-2019. Cornerstone Research’s July 15, 2020 press release about the new report can be found here.
Continue Reading Cornerstone Research: Tech Companies Hit with Record Number of Securities Suit in 2019

As regular readers know, over the last few months, I have been closely following the rise of coronavirus outbreak-related securities class action lawsuits. To date, though the pandemic is a global health and economic phenomenon, the pandemic-related securities litigation activity has been limited to the United States. In the following guest post, Jason Symons, Persia Navidi, Claudia George, and Luke Roper of the HWL Ebsworth Lawyers take a look at the possibilities for COVID-19-related securities class action lawsuits in Australia. 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: The Potential for COVID-19-Related Securities Class Actions in Australia

In the latest coronavirus outbreak-related securities class action lawsuit to be filed, a plaintiff shareholder has filed a securities class action lawsuit against The GEO Group, a publicly traded private corrections facilities operator, alleging that the company misled investors about the effectiveness of its COVID-19 response. The complaint alleges that the company’s “inadequate” procedures subjected residents of the Company’s halfway houses to significant health risks. The company’s share price declined following news reports of a COVID-19 outbreak at one of the company’s facilities. A copy of the plaintiff’s complaint can be found here.
Continue Reading Private Prison Firm Hit with COVID-19 Outbreak-Related Securities Suit

After the recent civil disturbances and social unrest, there has been a renewed focus on equality and diversity issues. Among many other things, investors and activists are raising concerns about the lack of racial diversity on corporate boards. For example, just last week, a California legislator introduced a bill that would require corporations to include on their boards persons from “underrepresented communities.” Now, in addition to these legislative efforts, an activist investor seeking to advance board diversity objectives has launched a shareholder derivative lawsuit against the directors of Oracle Corporation, accusing the board of violating their legal duties by failing to diversify the company’s board and otherwise failing to address diversity and equality issues. A copy of the investor’s complaint can be found here.
Continue Reading Oracle Directors Hit with Derivative Suit on Board Diversity Issues

Largely due to a significant decline in the number of filings during May and June, the number of federal court securities class action lawsuit filings in the first half of 2020 was well below the number of filings at the same point last year – although still well above long-term historical levels. The number of first half filings was significantly boosted by a cluster of securities suit filings against cryptocurrency companies that were sued on a single day in April, as well as by the number of coronavirus outbreak-related securities suits.
Continue Reading Securities Suit Filings Decline in Year’s First Half

One of the shorthand expressions sometimes used to refer to shareholder class action litigation is to call them “stock drop lawsuits.” Securities suits do indeed involve stock drops. But how often do stock drops actually result in lawsuits? That is the interesting questions asked in the following guest post from Stanford Law School Professor Michael Klausner and Sam Blake Curry and Jason Hegland of Stanford Securities Litigation Analytics. 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: “Stock Drop” Lawsuits