misrepresentations

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I have long thought that there was more than just a kernel of truth to Bloomberg columnist Matt Levine’s oft-quoted quip that “everything everywhere is securities fraud.” Just the same, there are certain circumstances that I have had a hard time seeing as leading to a securities fraud lawsuit. Like, for instance, the migrant crisis at the U.S.-Mexican border. The massive influx of migrants into the U.S. is a serious humanitarian and political emergency. But how on earth could the migrant crisis lead to a securities suit? Well, as it turns out, a securities suit filed last week in the federal court in Manhattan may just answer that question.Continue Reading Migrant Crisis Circumstances Lead to Securities Lawsuit Filing

Readers of this blog know that in recent years, plaintiffs’ lawyers have filed a number of D&O lawsuits against companies that experience cybersecurity-related incidents. Overall, the plaintiffs’ track record on these cases is at best mixed, and a number of high-profile cases have been dismissed. In the latest example of the dismissal of a cybersecurity-related securities suit, the court in the Capital One Financial Corporation data breach-related securities class action lawsuit has granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss. The September 13, 2022 dismissal order in the case can be found here.
Continue Reading Capital One Data Breach-Related Securities Suit Dismissed

Tim Hoeffner

Paul Ferrillo

In the following guest post, Tim Hoeffner and Paul Ferrillo of the McDermott Will & Emery law firm take a look at Southern District of New York Judge Ronnie Abrams’s April 2, 2020 order granting the defendants’ motion to dismiss in the Adient PLC Securities Litigation. I would like to thank Tim and Paul for allowing me the opportunity 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 Tim and Paul’s article.
Continue Reading Guest Post: Scienter “Takes a Seat” Front Row Center in New SDNY Case

What factors might indicate a likelihood of financial misreporting? There might be markers in companies’ financial statements, for example, with respect to reserving practices or practices with respect to other estimated items. There may be more general indicators as well, as, for example where companies reliably hit their revenue estimates due to a rush of end of reporting period sales. According to a recent academic study, attitudes in the community where businesses are located may also affect companies’ propensity for financial misreporting.

In a May 30, 2017 paper entitled “Gambling Attitudes and Financial Misreporting” (here), Dale Christensen of the University of Oregon, Keith Jones of the University of Kansas, and David Kenchington of Arizona State University, companies headquartered  in areas where residents hold gambling-friendly attitudes are more likely to intentionally misreport financial information. The authors findings were summarized in an August 14, 2017 Wall Street Journal article entitled “A Roll of the Dice on Financial Misreporting” (here).
Continue Reading Gambling Acceptance and Propensity for Financial Misreporting