Discussion of Key Issues in Securities & Governance Litigation
Hi, everyone:
When I moved to BakerHostetler to lead its firmwide Securities and Governance Litigation Team, I decided to take a break from publishing D&O Discourse — the blog I started in 2012 to provide in-depth opinion on key issues of law and practice in the world of securities and corporate governance litigation. That…
Following is an article we wrote for Law360, which gave us permission to republish it here:
The coming year promises to be a pivotal one in the world of securities and corporate governance litigation. In particular, there are five developing issues we are watching that have the greatest potential to significantly increase or decrease the…
In the world of securities and corporate governance litigation, we are always in the middle of a reform discussion of some variety. For the past several years, there has been great focus on amendment of corporate bylaws to corral and curtail shareholder corporate-governance claims, principally shareholder challenges to mergers.* Meritless merger litigation is indeed a…
One of the foremost uncertainties in securities and corporate governance litigation is the extent to which cybersecurity will become a significant D&O liability issue. Although many D&O practitioners have been bracing for a wave of cybersecurity D&O matters, to date there has been only a trickle. Some have come to believe that at most, there…
This year will be remembered as the year of the Super Bowl of securities litigation, Halliburton Co. v. Erica P. John Fund, Inc. (“Halliburton II”), 134 S. Ct. 2398 (2014), the case that finally gave the Supreme Court the opportunity to overrule the fraud-on-the-market presumption of reliance, established in 1988 in Basic v.
Last fall, I wrote about board oversight of cybersecurity and derivative litigation in the wake of cybersecurity breaches. I plan to update my thoughts later this year, after we see developments in the recently filed Target and Wyndham derivative actions, and learn the results of the 2014 installment of Carnegie Mellon’s bi-annual CyLab Governance of…
Shareholder litigation comes in waves. There is a widespread belief that the next big wave will be shareholder derivative litigation – a shareholder’s assertion of a claim belonging to the corporation, typically brought against directors and officers, alleging corporate harm for a board’s failure to prevent corporate problems.
Derivative cases filed as tag-alongs to…
Cyber security is top of mind for companies, and cyber-security oversight is top of mind for corporate directors. I recently co-moderated a panel discussion for directors on board oversight of cyber security and cyber-security disclosures. I thought I’d share my thoughts on some of the key issues.
What are the board’s fiduciary duties in the…
Last Tuesday, new SEC Chairman Mary Jo White said at The Wall Street Journal’s annual CFO Network Event that the SEC “in certain cases” will seek admissions of liability as part of settlements. The statement made headlines, and for good reason: for decades, the SEC has allowed settling defendants to neither admit nor deny…
I recently had occasion to review a number of motion-to-dismiss rulings, including some in which denial of the motion seemed to be an easy call. I’ve since been mulling over whether there are circumstances in which it would be strategically advantageous not to make a motion to dismiss in a Reform Act case, or a…