When the SEC brought civil enforcement charges against former Countrywide Financial CEO Angelo Mozilo in June 2009, a critical part of the agency’s allegations was that Mozilo had manipulated his Rule 10b5-1 trading plans to permit him to reap vast profits in trading his shares in company stock while he was aware of increasingly serious
H-P Shareholders Launch Securities Suit over Autonomy Revelations
When H-P announced on November 20, 2012 that it was taking an $8.8 billion charge after it discovered “accounting improprieties, misrepresentations and disclosure failures” at its Autonomy unit (which H-P acquired in October 2011 for $11.1 billion), there was a great deal of speculation that litigation would quickly follow. The intervening Thanksgiving weekend may have slowed
District Court Affirms SEC’s SOX Section 304 Right to Recoup Bonus Compensation from Executives of Companies Restating Financials
In a November 13, 2012 opinion (here), Western District of Texas Judge Sam Sparks has upheld the right of the SEC under Section 304 of Sarbanes Oxley to seek to clawback bonus compensation paid to the CEO and CFO of Arthrocare, after the company restated its prior financial statements., even though the CEO
Internal Control Misrepresentations Alone Held Sufficient to State a Securities Claim
Securities class action plaintiffs often allege that the defendants’ statements about their company’s internal controls are misleading. Typically, these internal control-related allegations are made in connection with allegations of accounting misrepresentations, as the plaintiffs contend that the alleged internal control deficienciesp allowed the accounting errors behind alleged accounting misrepresentations.
In a November 7, 2012
M&A Lawsuits after the Merger Closes
As I have frequently noted on this blog (most recently here), one of the most distinctive litigation phenomenon has been the rise in litigation involving M&A activity. It has gotten to the point that virtually every merger now also involves a lawsuit (or, more often, multiple suits). These cases have proven attractive to plaintiffs&rsquo
Guest Post: Oral Argument in Amgen — Will it Sway the Court?
I am pleased to publish below a guest post written by Robert F. Carangelo, Paul A. Ferrillo, David J. Schwartz, and Matthew D. Altemeier of the Weil, Gotshal & Manges law firm and the authors of The 10b-5 Guide, the most recent edition of which can be found here.. The guest post
NERA Releases Study of Securities Suits against Non-U.S. Companies
The volume of securities litigation against non-U.S. companies has ‘reached record levels” despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Morrison v. National Australia Bank, according to a recent report from NERA Economic Consulting. The report, written by Robert Patton of NERA, and entitled “Recent Trends in U.S. Securities Class Actions Against Non-U.S.
Proposals to Address the M&A-Related Litigation Problem
The growing problem of M&A-related litigation has been well-documented on this site (refer for example here). The prevalence of M&A litigation has grown to the point that virtually every M&A transaction involves litigation, and often involving multiple lawsuits in multiple jurisdictions. These growing problems have been well-documented (refer for example here and here)
Goldman Sachs, Fabulous Fab, and Morrison’s Second Prong
In its June 2010 decision in the Morrison v. National Australia Bank, the U.S. Supreme Court enunciated a "transactions" test to determine the applicability of the U.S. securities laws. The Court said that the U.S. securities laws apply only to "transactions in securities listed on domestic exchanges and domestic transactions in other securities." Lower courts
Securities Suit Against U.S.-Listed Chinese Company Survives Dismissal Motion in Part
On August 24, 2012, in a decision involving a U.S.-listed Chinese company that is of particular interest because of the significance the court attached to the discrepancies between financial figures the defendant company reported to the Chinese government and the figures it reported to the SEC, Southern District of New York Judge George Daniels denied