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Should The Sec Be A Collection Agency For Defrauded Investors?, Barbara Black
Should The Sec Be A Collection Agency For Defrauded Investors?, Barbara Black
Faculty Articles and Other Publications
One of the important functions of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("the SEC") is enforcing the securities laws and punishing violators. Collecting damages for defrauded investors was not, historically, an important part of the agency's mission; rather that was the function of private securities fraud class actions. Section 308 (the "Fair Fund provision") of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 gives the SEC a more prominent role in compensating investors and allows the agency, in some circumstances, to distribute civil penalties to defrauded investors. The SEC has established Fair Funds in a number of high-profile cases and has taken pride …
There Are Plaintiffs And . . . There Are Plaintiffs: An Empirical Analysis Of Securities Class Action Settlements, Randall Thomas, James D. Cox, Lynn Bai
There Are Plaintiffs And . . . There Are Plaintiffs: An Empirical Analysis Of Securities Class Action Settlements, Randall Thomas, James D. Cox, Lynn Bai
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
In this paper, we examine the impact of the PSLRA and more particularly the impact the type of lead plaintiff on the size of settlements in securities fraud class actions. We thus provide insight into whether the type of plaintiff that heads the class action impacts the overall outcome of the case. Furthermore, we explore possible indicia that may explain why some suits settle for extremely small sums - small relative to the "provable losses" suffered by the class, small relative to the asset size of the defendant-company, and small relative to other settlements in our sample. This evidence bears …