state court securities litigation

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Priya Cherian Huskins

In a recent post, I took a look at the rise in the number of state court securities class action lawsuits that have been filed in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the Cyan case. In the following guest post, Priya Cherian Huskins of Woodruff Sawyer & Co. takes a deeper look at the state court securities class action data to assess the extent of the threat of state court securities class action litigation relating to follow-on offerings. A version of this article was previously published in Woodruff-Sawyer’s D&O Notebook.  I would like to thank Priya for her willingness to allow me to publish her 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 Priya’s article.
Continue Reading Guest Post: Is it Really that Bad? Follow-On Offerings and Section 11 Suits in State Court

In a recent post, I commented on the settlement of a state court securities class action lawsuit relating to the defendant company’s secondary offering, suggesting in the post among other things that the state court suit was noteworthy because it was the first state court secondary offering-related securities suit of which I was aware. In response to the post, I received a helpful and informative email from my friends at Stanford Securities Litigation Analytics, who pointed out that over time there actually have been quite a number of state court secondary offering-related securities suits. Following their direction, I was able to research this issue further myself using their site’s analytic tools and confirm a number of their observations to me about these kinds of lawsuits. Turns out, as they informed me, there have in fact been a number of state court secondary offering-related securities lawsuits, both pre- and post-Cyan, as set out below. This information could have significant implications both for companies conducting secondary offerings and for their D&O insurers.
Continue Reading More About State Court Secondary Offering-Related Securities Class Action Suits

On March 28, 2019, amidst much fanfare, the rideshare company Lyft went public at $72 a share, raising more than $2.2 billion.  In the first trading day following the offering, the company’s share price rose 8.7 percent. However, despite the initial euphoria, Lyft’s share price then began to slump. Lyft shares closed at $58.36 on Thursday afternoon (April 18), representing a decline of nearly 20% from the company’s IPO share price. Apparently, at least one investor who purchased shares is fighting mad about the decline. On April 16, 2019 – just 13 trading days after the IPO– the shareholder filed a securities class action lawsuit against the company in California state court. A copy of the plaintiff’s complaint can be found here. An April 17, 2019 Bloomberg article about the lawsuit can be found here.
Continue Reading Well, That Didn’t Take Long: Lyft Hit with IPO-Related Securities Suit

The number of federal court securities class action lawsuit filings remained “near record levels” during 2018, according to the latest report published by  Cornerstone Research in conjunction with the Stanford Law School Securities Class Action Clearinghouse. State court securities lawsuit filings, detailed in the report, drove securities class action litigation filing activity to even higher levels during 2018, arguably to the highest levels ever. According to the report, the likelihood of a U.S.-listed company getting hit with a securities suit was higher in 2018 than it has ever been. Driven by the sheer volume of litigation and the number of lawsuits against larger companies, the 2018 securities suit filings represented an aggregate market capitalization loss of over $1 trillion. The Cornerstone Research report, entitled “Securities Class Action Filings: 2018 Year in Review,” can be found here. Cornerstone Research’s January 30, 2019 press release can be found here. My own review of the 2018 securities class action lawsuit filings can be found here.
Continue Reading Cornerstone Research: Combined Federal and State Securities Suit Filings at Highest-Ever Levels in 2018