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Full-Text Articles in Securities Law
Judgment Day For Fraud-On-The-Market?: Reflections On Amgen And The Second Coming Of Halliburton, Donald C. Langevoort
Judgment Day For Fraud-On-The-Market?: Reflections On Amgen And The Second Coming Of Halliburton, Donald C. Langevoort
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
In November 2013, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in the Halliburton litigation to reconsider, and perhaps overrule, its seminal decision in Basic Inc. v. Levinson. Basic legitimated the fraud-on-the-market presumption of reliance, making securities class actions for claims of false corporate publicity viable, and such cases have become the central mechanisms for private securities fraud litigation. This move came after last Term’s Amgen decision, where four justices signaled their doubts about Basic. This essay looks at the connection between Amgen and the continuing viability of fraud-on-the-market litigation. How Halliburton comes out will likely depend on how the Court …
“Fine Distinctions” In The Contemporary Law Of Insider Trading, Donald C. Langevoort
“Fine Distinctions” In The Contemporary Law Of Insider Trading, Donald C. Langevoort
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
William Cary’s opinion for the SEC in In re Cady, Roberts & Co. built the foundation on which the modern law of insider trading rests. This paper—a contribution to Columbia Law School’s recent celebration of Cary’s Cady Roberts opinion, explores some of these—particularly the emergence of a doctrine of “reckless” insider trading. Historically, the crucial question is this: how or why did the insider trading prohibition survive the retrenchment that happened to so many other elements of Rule 10b-5? It argues that the Supreme Court embraced the continuing existence of the “abstain or disclose” rule, and tolerated constructive fraud notwithstanding …
Ipos And The Slow Death Of Section 5, Donald C. Langevoort, Robert B. Thompson
Ipos And The Slow Death Of Section 5, Donald C. Langevoort, Robert B. Thompson
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Since its enactment, Section 5 of the Securities Act of 1933 has restricted sales-based communications with investors, but that effort is nearly dead even with respect to the most sensitive of offerings, the IPO. Our paper traces that devolution, which began almost as soon as the ’33 Act came into existence, though the SEC’s 2005 deregulatory reforms and Congress’ intervention in the JOBS Act of 2012. We show how much of this related to an embrace of “book-building” as the industry’s preferred method of price discovery, which requires private two-way communications between underwriters and potential sophisticated investors. But book-building (and …
Lies Without Liars? Janus Capital And Conservative Securities Jurisprudence, Donald C. Langevoort
Lies Without Liars? Janus Capital And Conservative Securities Jurisprudence, Donald C. Langevoort
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
The Supreme Court’s recent Janus Capital case offers a reading of the word “make” in Rule 10b-5 that speaks to ultimate legal authority over the communication in question. This creates the real possibility that we can have lies without liars, an entirely perplexing result in terms of any purposive meaning of the rule. In so holding, Justice Thomas joined a seemingly short list of judges who suggest that legal formalism is a particularly good weapon with which to fight securities fraud. This paper exploresJanus through the lens of conservative textualism, which takes us through a much longer intellectual history …