Law Commons^™

In Re Endochoice Holdings Inc. Order Preliminarily Approving Class Action Settlement And Providing For Issuance Of Notice, Elizabeth E. Long

Georgia Business Court Opinions

No abstract provided.

The End Of Class Actions?, Brian T. Fitzpatrick

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

In this Article, I give a status report on the life expectancy of class action litigation following the Supreme Court's decisions in Concepcion and American Express. These decisions permitted corporations to opt out of class action liability through the use of arbitration clauses, and many commentators, myself included, predicted that they would eventually lead us down a road where class actions against businesses would be all but eliminated. Enough time has now passed to make an assessment of whether these predictions are coming to fruition. I find that, although there is not yet solid evidence that businesses have flocked to …

The Trouble With Basic: Price Distortion After Halliburton, Jill E. Fisch

All Faculty Scholarship

Many commentators credit the Supreme Court’s decision in Basic, Inc. v. Levinson, which allowed courts to presume reliance rather than requiring individualized proof, with spawning a vast industry of private securities fraud litigation. Today, the validity of Basic’s holding has come under attack as scholars have raised questions about the extent to which the capital markets are efficient. In truth, both these views are overstated. Basic’s adoption of the Fraud on the Market presumption reflected a retreat from prevailing lower court recognition that the application of a reliance requirement was inappropriate in the context of impersonal public …

Secret Class Action Settlements, Rhonda Wasserman

Articles

This Article analyzes the phenomenon of secret class action settlements. To illustrate the practice, Part I undertakes a case study of a class action lawsuit that recently settled under seal. Part II seeks to ascertain the scope of the practice. Part II.A examines newspaper accounts describing class action settlements from around the country. Part II.B focuses on a single federal judicial district – the Western District of Pennsylvania – and seeks to ascertain the percentage of suits filed as class actions that were settled under seal. Having gained some understanding of the scope of the practice, the Article then seeks …

Common Challenges Facing Shareholder Suits In Europe And The United States, Randall Thomas, James D. Cox

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Episodic and even sometimes systematic misbehavior by businessmen and corporate entities is ubiquitous. While Enron and WorldCom were the battle cries for corporate reform in the U.S. so it was with Ahold and Parmalat across Europe. No country is free of concern that company officers will misbehave thereby injuring investors, consumers and destroying shareholder value. Thus, this symposium issue collects the recent experiences across Europe in strengthening shareholder suits. Most recent legislative efforts in Europe, and hence the comments in the symposium, are focused on the derivative suit. Just as the American experience with class actions, reviewed separately in this …

Civil Liability And Mandatory Disclosure, Merritt B. Fox

Faculty Scholarship

This Article explores the efficient design of civil liability for mandatory securities disclosure violations by established issuers. An issuer not publicly offering securities at the time of a violation should have no liability. Its annual filings should be signed by an external certifier – an investment bank or other well-capitalized entity with financial expertise. If the filing contains a material misstatement and the certifier fails to do due diligence, the certifier should face measured liability. Officers and directors should face similar liability, capped relative to their compensation but with no indemnification or insurance allowed. Damages should be payable to the …

Class Action Criminality, Lisa L. Casey

Journal Articles

This paper examines the criminal prosecution of Milberg Weiss, formerly the most successful plaintiffs’ securities class action firm in the country, for allegedly making undisclosed incentive payments to class representatives. In particular, the article examines the government’s primary charge - that the firm’s practice violated the “honest services” theory of mail and wire fraud. The government’s application of this theory presumes a fiduciary relationship between the class representatives and the class which has never been clearly delineated and, indeed, is against the weight of case law and the realities of class action litigation.

The Article proceeds on two different levels. …

Corruption Of The Class Action: The New Technology Of Collusion, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

Professor Coffee's article, an oral version of which was given at the Cornell Mass Torts conference, is appearing in the Columbia Law Review. However, because commentators in this volume have responded to it, he has authorized the following summary of his views.