Law Commons^™

Speech Without Speakers: Eliminating Artificial Barriers To Pleading Corporate Scienter In Securities Fraud Claims, Jennifer Ligansky

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

To successfully plead securities fraud claims under Rule 10b–5, the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act (“PSLRA”) requires that plaintiff-investors raise a “strong inference” that the defendant acted with scienter when issuing a false statement. But pleading scienter presents a challenging issue when the defendant is not a person, but an entity. When the defendant is a corporation, U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals have adopted different approaches for determining whether the plaintiff has pleaded a strong inference of scienter. Some circuits hold that plaintiffs can raise a strong inference of corporate scienter only if the complaint identifies a speaker who knew …

Spacs, Forward-Looking Statements, And Rule 419: Is Sec Rulemaking Needed?, Nicholas Vota

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

On October 8, 2020, FirstMark Horizon Acquisition Corp. (“FirstMark” or “Company”) closed an initial public offering (“IPO”) of 41,400,000 units. Each unit was priced at $10.00 and “consist[ed] of one share of Class A common stock of the Company . . . and one-third of one redeemable warrant of the Company.” Each whole warrant provided its holder with the right to purchase “one share of Class A [c]ommon [s]tock for $11.50 per share.” FirstMark generated $414,000,000 in connection with the IPO. These funds were then placed in a trust account and maintained by a trustee.

In a filing submitted …

What’S In The Forecast For The Spac Boom & The Pslra?, Nick Krone

SLU Law Journal Online

Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) have exploded in popularity. These so-called “blank check” companies are used as vehicles to take companies public without going through a traditional IPO process. Financial projections in SPACs are currently protected by the safe harbor for forward-looking statements afforded by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act (PSLRA). In this article, Nick Krone examines whether SPACs should be protected by the PSLRA.

Working Hard Or Making Work? Plaintiffs' Attorneys Fees In Securities Fraud Class Actions, Stephen J. Choi, Jessica Erickson, A. C. Pritchard

Articles

In this article, we study attorney fees awarded in the largest securities class actions: “mega- settlements.” Consistent with prior work, we find larger fee awards but lower percentages in these cases. We also find that courts are more likely to reject or modify fee requests made in connection with the largest settlements. We conjecture that this scrutiny provides an incentive for law firms to bill more hours, not to advance the case, but to help justify large fee awards—“make work.” The results of our empirical tests are consistent with plaintiffs’ attorneys investing more time in litigation against larger companies, with …

Investing In Corporate Procedure, Jessica M. Erickson

Law Faculty Publications

Corporate litigation is in crisis. At the state level, shareholder lawsuits challenging mergers and other corporate decisions are ubiquitous but rarely end with meaningful relief for shareholders. At the federal level, securities class actions are rife with ethical challenges and low-value settlements. Over the last several decades, multiple groups — including judges, legislatures, and corporate boards — have tried to solve this problem, but all have come up short. This Article argues that the solution lies in rewriting the procedural rules that govern corporate lawsuits. New standing requirements would lead to better screening of these claims. Discovery limits and heightened …

Cyan, Reverse-Erie, And The Pslra Discovery Stay In State Court, Wendy Gerwick Couture

Articles

No abstract provided.

Out On A Limb: Support For A Limited Version Of Collective Scienter, Matt Mccabe

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

This Note argues that the correct approach to imputing scienter to a corporation by means of the collective scienter theory is through the absurdity analysis taken by the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

Another Nail In The Coffin Of The Small Investor: The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act Of 1995, James Cotton

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Cautionary Look At A Cautionary Doctrine, Andrew W. Fine

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

Optimism is an indispensable element of effective salesmanship. It is therefore quite natural for the directors of public companies to want to optimistically tout the potential long-term benefits of investing in their companies. After all, directors of public companies must be empowered to attract the attention and money of American investors. But what happens if these long-term projections fail to come true? Who is to blame for long-term projections that are simply unrealistic? A doctrine called the “bespeaks caution” doctrine has emerged in order to govern these inquiries, and holds that these optimistic forward-looking statements are legally immunized provided that …

When May A Litigant Rely In Its Own Complaint On Allegations From Another Complaint? – Lipsky V. Commonwealth United Corp. And Its Progeny – Still An Unresolved Question, Laurence A. Steckman, Joseph T. Johnson

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Loss Causation, Economic Loss Rules And Offset Defenses – Dismissal Motion Practice After Acticon A.G. V. China North East Petroleum Holdings Ltd., Laurence A. Steckman, Robert E. Conner, Kris Steckman Taylor

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Securities Fraud Damages Under The Pslra, Mohammed A. Misbah

Mohammed A Misbah

The United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act ("PSLRA") implemented several substantive changes affecting certain cases brought under the federal securities laws. It was designed to reduce the number of “frivolous” securities lawsuits filed in federal courts. Prior to the PSLRA, a securities fraud case could proceed with minimal evidence and use pre-trial discovery to search for more evidence that strongly suggested a deliberate fraud. Under the PSLRA plaintiffs need such evidence simply in order to commence an action. This article seeks to explain what evidence is required of a plaintiff in a security fraud case, in order to defeat …

Disaggregated Classes, Benjamin P. Edwards

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Is The Price Right? An Empirical Study Of Fee-Setting In Securities Class Actions, Michael A. Perino, Lynn A. Baker, Charles Silver

Faculty Publications

Every year, fee awards enable millions of people to obtain access to justice and strengthen the deterrent effect of the law by motivating lawyers to handle class actions. But little research exists on why judges award the amounts they do or whether they size fee awards correctly. The process remains a black box. Through a detailed study of 431 securities class actions that settled in federal district courts from 2007 through 2012, this Article presents the first empirical study to peer inside that black box. In contrast to prior analyses, this study relies on the actual court filings in each …

Market Intermediation, Publicness, And Securities Class Actions, Hillary A. Sale, Robert B. Thompson

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Securities class actions play a crucial, if contested, role in the policing of securities fraud and the protection of securities markets. The theoretical understanding of these private enforcement claims needs to evolve to encompass the broader set of goals that underlie the securities regulatory impulse and the publicness of those goals. Further, a clear grasp of the modern securities class action also requires an updated understanding of how the role of market intermediation in securities transactions has reshaped the realities of securities litigation in public companies and the evolution of the fraud cause of action in the context of open-market …

Putting The “Uniform” Back In The Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act Of 1998: The Case For Employing A Reasonable Relationship Approach, Christopher R. Bellacicco

Catholic University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Setting Attorneys' Fees In Securities Class Actions: An Empirical Assessment, Lynn A. Baker, Michael A. Perino, Charles Silver

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

In 1995, Congress overrode President Bill Clinton's veto and enacted the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act ("PSLRA"), a key purpose of which was to put securities class actions under the control of institutional investors with large financial stakes in the outcome of the litigation. The theory behind this policy, set out in a famous article by Professors Elliot Weiss and John Beckerman, was simple: self-interest should encourage investors with large stakes to run class actions in ways that maximize recoveries for all investors. These investors should naturally want to hire good lawyers, incentivize them properly, monitor their actions, and …

Determining The Proper Pleading Standard Under The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act Of 1995 After In Re Silicon Graphics , Erin Brady

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Optimal Lead Plaintiffs, Elizabeth Chamblee Burch

Scholarly Works

Adequate representation in securities class actions is, at best, an afterthought and, at worst, usurped and subsumed by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act’s lead-plaintiff appointment process. Once appointed, the lead plaintiff bears a crushing burden: Congress expects her to monitor the attorney, thwart strike suits, and deter fraud, while judges expect her appointment as the “most adequate plaintiff” to resolve intra-class conflicts and adequate-representation problems. But even if she could be all things to all people, the lead plaintiff has little authority to do much aside from appointing lead counsel. Plus, class members in securities-fraud cases have diverse preferences …

False Forward-Looking Statements And The Pslra's Safe Harbor, Ann Morales Olazabal

Indiana Law Journal

Voluntary public disclosure of soft information—corporate projections and predictions and other forward-looking statements—is now the norm, following a brief learning curve after the enactment of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act’s safe harbor for forward-looking information in 1995. As a consequence, allegations of false forward-looking statements are also quite standard in today’s class action securities fraud pleading. This work addresses an emerging trend, spearheaded by the Seventh Circuit’s decision in Asher v. Baxter International, to introduce a subjective scienter or intent-like inquiry into consideration of the application of the PSLRA’s safe harbor. Numerous district courts have followed Asher’s lead, employing …

Why Not Tell The Truth?: Deceptive Practices And The Economic Meltdown, Charles W. Murdock

Charles W. Murdock

Today we are witnessing a crisis caused by economic formulae developed without a responsible exercise of judgment and, in many instances, with a shocking disregard for the truth. The virtue of truthfulness is not just some abstract moral principle. Rather, it is a critical component of a well functioning society. As the current situation demonstrates, the lack of regard for truthfulness can have disastrous consequences, not just for our own country, but around the world.

This article will first examine how broadly truth is devalued throughout our society. Second, it will focus on the lack of truthfulness in politics and …

Proving Preemption By Proving Exemption: The Quandary Of The National Securities Market Improvement Act, Jeffrey D. Chadwick

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Do Differences In Pleadings Standards Cause Forum Shopping In Securities Class Actions?: Doctrinal And Empirical Analyses, James D. Cox, Randall S. Thomas, Lin (Lynn) Bai

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

Federal appellate courts have promulgated divergent legal standards for pleading fraud in securities fraud class actions after the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act (PSLRA). Recently, the Supreme Court of the United States issued a decision in Tellabs, Inc. v. Makor Issues & Rights, Ltd. that could have resolved these differences, but did not do so. This Paper provides two significant contributions. We first show that Tellabs avoids deciding the hard issues that confront courts and litigants daily in the wake of the PSLRA's heightened pleading standard. As a consequence, the opinion keeps very much alive the circuits' disparate interpretations of …

Reforming China’S Securities Civil Actions: Lessons From Us’S Pslra Reform And Taiwan’S Government Sanctioned Non-Profit Organization, Wallace Wen-Yeu Wang, Jianlin Chen

Jianlin Chen

In this paper, we analyze the different civil enforcement regimes of China, US and Taiwan to answer how China should reform her securities civil actions. Drawing on the latest scholarships and empirical studies, we examine the inadequacies of the US class actions in achieving the goals of deterrence and compensation and the implementation of PSLRA reform. The surprise finding on the active role by public institutional investors but passive role by private institutional investors is highlighted and discussed. Recognizing that efficiency of private attorney does not equate to efficiency of public good production and the importance of institutions motivated by …

There Are Plaintiffs And...There Are Plaintiffs: An Empirical Analysis Of Securities Class Action Settlements, James D. Cox, Randall S. Thomas, Lin (Lynn) Bai

Faculty Articles and Other 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 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 heavily …

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. …

Still "Ain't No Glory In Pain": How The Telecommunications Act Of 1996 And Other 1990s Deregulation Facilitated The Market Crash Of 2002, André Douglas Pond Cummings

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

No abstract provided.

Pslra, Slusa, And Defrauded Retirement Investors: Overlooked Side Effects Of A Potent Legislative Medicine, Michael J. Borden

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This Article highlights a harmful and far-reaching unintended consequence of two major pieces of securities litigation reform legislation that were passed as part of the Republican party's Contract with America in the mid-1990s. These reforms were justified, in part, on the grounds that they would benefit investors by improving disclosure of financial information by corporations. However, for many aggrieved investors, the effect of the legislation was just the opposite. Because of inadequate and misleading disclosures made by life insurance companies and their registered representatives, consumers were induced to purchase inappropriate investments carrying excessive fees that reduced the value of their …

"Go Pick A Client" - And Other Tales Of Woe Resulting From The Selection Of Class Counsel By Court-Ordered Competitive Bidding, Fred B. Burnside

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

No abstract provided.

Heightened Pleading, Christopher M. Fairman

Christopher M Fairman

No abstract provided.