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According to a January 29, 2018 report from NERA Economic Consulting, there was “an explosion” of U.S. federal court securities class action litigation filing in 2017, as new securities suits were filed at a “record pace.” The report, entitled “Record Trends in Securities Class Action Litigation: 2017 Full-Year Review,” can be found here. NERA’s January 27, 2018 press release regarding the report can be found here. My analysis of the 2017 securities class action lawsuit filings can be found here.
Continue Reading NERA: 2017 Securities Suits Filed at “Record Pace”

In the recent Advisen quarterly claims webinar, when asked to make a claim prediction for 2018, I said that I thought we would see more cryptocurrency-related regulatory action, enforcement action, and litigation this year. Some might say I was not really going out on a limb with this prediction. After all, earlier this week, Jay Clayton, the Chair of the SEC, and J. Christopher Giancarlo, the head of the CFTC, took to the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal to make the point that their respective agencies  are closely monitoring cryptocurrency activities and that the agencies will take action when warranted. That same day, the CFTC announced its third fraud enforcement action in a week.
Continue Reading As Predicted, Another Cryptocurrency-Related Securities Suit

In his recent one-volume history of American capitalism, “Americana,” author Bhu Srivnivasan recounts the rise of many of the country’s large corporations in the late 19th century, including the long-standing U.S. industry stalwart, General Electric. GE was formed when Wall Street bankers engineered the merger of two fledgling electrical services providers, including the company formed by Thomas Edison, Edison Electric. The company has since grown to become a massive conglomerate and something of a mainstay of the U.S. commercial economy, in many ways a bellwether for the country’s economic health and a representative example of the country’s industrial might. More recently the company has gone through some high-profile struggles, drawing questions for the company’s management – and as discussed below, attracting securities class action litigation as well.
Continue Reading Reflections on GE’s Massive Run-Off Insurance-Related Charge

As I have previously noted (most recently here), third-party litigation financing is an increasingly important part of the litigation scene in the U.S. and around the world. In a series of articles in December, Law 360 took a comprehensive overview of litigation funding in the U.S. As discussed below, the Law 360 series provides an interesting perspective on an increasingly important part of the U.S. litigation environment.
Continue Reading The Latest on Third-Party Litigation Financing

The world of directors’ and officers’ liability is always dynamic, but 2017 was a particularly eventful year in the D&O liability arena. The year’s many developments have significant implications for what may lie ahead in 2018 – and possibly for years to come. I have set out below the Top Ten D&O stories of 2017, with an eye to these future possibilities.
Continue Reading Top Ten D&O Stories of 2017

More securities class action lawsuits were filed in 2017 than in any year since 2001, in significant part because of the substantial number of federal court merger objection lawsuit filings during the year. But even disregarding the merger suits and looking only at the traditional securities lawsuits, the number of lawsuit filings was at the highest level since at least 2004.  While the elevated numbers of lawsuit filings is noteworthy, it is the litigation rate – that is, the number of securities suits relative to the number of public companies – that is most significant. According to my estimate, the litigation rate during 2017 was at all-time record levels.
Continue Reading Securities Suit Filings at Historically High Levels During 2017

Even after the precipitous drop this past Friday in the price of Bitcoin and other digital currencies, the developments during the past several months involving cryptocurrencies have to be one of the year’s top business stories. While news articles about digital currencies focus on the dramatic rise this year in the price of Bitcoin or on the recent wave of initial coin offerings (ICOs), part of this year’s cryptocurrency story has to include the SEC’s increasingly active approach to policing digital currency trading, as well as the rising numbers of lawsuits filed against cryptocurrency sponsors. As I have noted in prior posts, in recent weeks claimants have filed a number of cryptocurrency-related securities lawsuits. Late last week, investors filed two more of these lawsuits, one involving an ICO company and the other involving a publicly traded blockchain consulting company.
Continue Reading Cryptocurrency-Related Securities Lawsuits: A Litigation Filing Trend for the New Year?

In the latest of what is beginning to look like a wave of ICO-related securities lawsuit filings, would-be investors who made pre-offering investments in Monkey Capital’s promised but uncompleted ICO have filed a securities class action lawsuit in the Southern District of Florida against the company and its principals, alleging that the company’s pre-offering sale of options to purchase coins or tokens in the offering represented the sale unregistered securities in violation of the federal securities laws. A copy of the plaintiffs’ December 19, 2017 complaint can be found here.
Continue Reading Uncompleted ICO Draws Securities Class Action Lawsuit

According to news reports, the amount raised through Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) in 2017 now exceeds $4 billion. This surge of activity has drawn the attention of regulators. The SEC is clearly stepping up its ICO-related enforcement activity. ICOs are also drawing the attention of securities class action plaintiffs’ attorneys. As I noted in a prior post, plaintiffs’ attorneys have filed several securities class action lawsuits in connection with the Tezos ICO early this year. Now plaintiff attorneys have filed yet another ICO-related securities class action lawsuit, in this case involving the high-profile and controversial Centra Tech ICO.
Continue Reading Another ICO Draws a Securities Class Action Lawsuit

While commentators (like me) were predicting a blitz of data breach-related D&O litigation, the anticipated onslaught failed to materialize. The few cases that were filed –in the form of shareholder derivative suits — were unsuccessful. More recently, however, plaintiffs’ lawyers have been taking a different approach to data breach-related D&O lawsuits, filing their cases in the form of securities class action lawsuits. These more recent suits involve cases against Equifax (about which refer here) and PayPal (here). Now plaintiffs’ lawyers have filed yet another data breach-related securities suit, this one against Qudian, a Chinese company that just completed its IPO in October 2017.   
Continue Reading Yet Another Data Breach-Related Securities Suit Filed