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As local coronavirus pandemic-related stay-at-home orders expire or are withdrawn over the coming weeks, employees will be returning to the workplace. According to a recent blog post, a “wave of workplace class actions” could follow in connection with the return to work. In an April 26, 2020 blog post on the Workplace Class Action Blog entitled “The Coming Surge of Workplace Class Actions in the Wake of COVID-19” (here), Gerald Maatman and Jennifer Riley of the Seyfarth Shaw law firm predict a surge of workplace lawsuits “in several key areas such as discrimination and workplace bias, wage & hour, as well as on the health & safety front.”
Continue Reading Will a Wave of Workplace Lawsuits Follow the Return to Work?

In what is the fifth coronavirus outbreak-related securities class action lawsuit to date, a plaintiff shareholder has filed a securities class action lawsuit against a healthcare information software services company. The lawsuit is based on alleged misrepresentations the company allegedly made with respect to a contract the company had entered for the sale of COVID-19 test kits. The company’s share price rose on news of the agreement, but later fell following an online report raising questions about the agreement. The plaintiff’s April 29, 2020 complaint can be found here.
Continue Reading Healthcare Software Services Company Hit with COVID-19 Related Securities Suit

Francis Kean

In the following guest post, Francis Kean takes a look at the potential impact on COVID 19-related claims of standard D&O insurance policy exclusions. Francis is a Partner, Financial Lines, at McGill and Partners. A version of this article previously was published as a McGill client alert. I would like to thank Francis for allowing me to publish his article 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 Francis’s article.

Continue Reading Guest Post: Beware the Unexpected Consequences of “Standard” D&O Exclusions

The SEC has made it clear that it will be monitoring market activity related to the coronavirus outbreak. The agency’s Chairman and others have declared that they expect companies to be forthcoming about the impact of the pandemic on company operations and finances, and underscored the fact that the agency will be watching. On April 24, 2020, the agency announced that it had formed a COVID-19 market monitoring group. And on April 28, 2020, the agency brought what as far as I know is its first coronavirus outbreak-related enforcement action, when it filed an action against a penny stock company Praxsyn Corporation and its CEO for public claims about the company’s claims about its ability to acquire and distribute N95 face masks. A copy of the SEC’s complaint can be found here. The SEC’s April 28, 2020 press release about the enforcement action can be found here.
Continue Reading SEC Files First COVID-19 Related Enforcement Action

In the early stages of the coronavirus-related close-down, most colleges and universities terminated live classes, switched to online lessons, and sent their students home. In some cases, affected students have filed lawsuits against their schools, seeking to recover tuition and fees paid for classes, housing, and food. The following posts discuss the extent of the exposure that these kinds of claims represent for these institutions’ boards of directors or boards of trustees.
Continue Reading Coronavirus-Related Suits Hit Higher Ed Institutions

In the latest securities suit related to the coronavirus outbreak, a plaintiff shareholder has filed a U.S. securities class action lawsuit against a Chinese real estate firm whose American Depositary Shares (ADSs) are listed on the NYSE, based on allegations that the company’s January 2020 IPO offering documents failed to disclose the impact of the outbreak on the company’s residential real estate operations in China. This latest filing is the first coronavirus-related securities lawsuit in the U.S. against a non-U.S. company. A copy of the plaintiff’s April 24, 2020 complaint can be found here.
Continue Reading U.S.-Listed Chinese Real Estate Firm Hit with Coronavirus-Related Securities Suit

Francis Kean

As the coronavirus outbreak has unfolded , one of the steps that insurers have been taking in response is to try to add coronavirus or pandemic exclusions to policyholders’ go-forward policies, in some instances included with respect to D&O insurance. In the following guest post, Francis Kean takes a look at an example of this type of exclusion. Francis is a Partner, Financial Lines, at McGill and Partners. A version of this article previously was published as part of a McGill client alert. I would like to thank Francis for allowing me to publish his article 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 Francis’s article.
Continue Reading Guest Post: The Dangers of COVID-19 Exclusions in D&O Policies

As the coronavirus outbreak has spread, the COVID-19 disease has struck millions across the globe. The demographics and geographic distribution of the disease will make for interesting study when the current outbreak has ended, but clearly the disease has struck both the mighty and modest. The high-profile victims include the Prince of Wales and the U.K. Prime Minister. Other victims have included (and likely will continue to include) senior corporate executives. When key execs contract the disease, their companies face the question whether the executives’ illness must be disclosed.  As discussed in Judy Greenwald’s April 21, 2020 Business Insurance article (here), there are no bright line answers to this question.
Continue Reading If Top Exec Has Covid-19, Does the Company Have to Disclose It?

As readers know, I have been keeping track of COVID 19-related securities class action lawsuits as they have been filed over the course of recent weeks (most recently here). One of the companies to get hit with a COVID 19 related securities suit is the pharmaceutical company Inovio; as discussed here, a plaintiff shareholder filed a securities suit against the company based on alleged statements by the company’s CEO about the company’s readiness to prepare and begin testing a coronavirus vaccine. Now the company’s board has been with a separate shareholder derivative lawsuit based on the same coronavirus-related allegations. A copy of the plaintiff’s complaint, filed on April 20, 2020, can be found here.
Continue Reading Pharma Company Hit with COVID 19-Related Derivative Suit

At Noon EDT on Wednesday April 22, 2020, I will be participating in a free hour-long Business Insurance webinar with my good friends Priya Cherian Huskins of Woodruff Sawyer and Bill Passannante of the Anderson Kill law firm on the topic of D&O Risks from COVID-19. The session will be moderated by Business Insurance’s Gavin…