Discussion of Key Issues in Securities & Governance Litigation
In this installment of the D&O Discourse series “5 Wishes for Securities Litigation Defense,” we discuss the third of five changes that would significantly improve securities litigation defense: to make the Supreme Court’s Omnicare decision a primary tool in the defense of securities class actions.
As a reminder, in Omnicare, Inc. v. Laborers…
One of my “5 Wishes for Securities Litigation Defense” (April 30, 2016 post) is to require an interview process for the selection of defense counsel in all cases.
When a public company purchases a significant good or service, it typically seeks competitive proposals. From coffee machines to architects, companies invite multiple vendors to…
I am committed to helping shape a system for securities litigation defense that helps directors and officers get through securities litigation safely and efficiently, without losing their serenity or dignity, and without facing any real risk of paying any personal funds.
But we are actually moving in the opposite direction of this goal, and unless…
On March 24, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its opinion in Omnicare, Inc. v. Laborers Dist. Council Const. Industry Pension Fund, 135 S. Ct. 1318 (2015). My partner Claire Davis and I are publishing a forthcoming one-year anniversary article on Omnicare. In addition to discussing the lower courts’ application of the decision,…
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 2015, the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act* turned twenty years old.
Over my career as a securities litigator, I’ve seen both sides of the securities-litigation divide that the Reform Act created. In the first part of my career, I witnessed the figurative skid marks in front of courthouses, as lawyers raced to the courthouse…
When a public company purchases a significant good or service, it typically seeks competitive proposals. From coffee machines to architects, companies invite multiple vendors to bid, evaluate their proposals, and choose one based on a combination of quality and cost. Yet companies named in a securities class action frequently fail to engage in a competitive…
If correctly understood and applied, the Supreme Court’s decision in Omnicare, Inc. v. Laborers Dist. Council Const. Industry Pension Fund, 135 S. Ct. 1318 (2015), will allow corporate officers to speak more freely, without fear of unfair liability. And defendants will win more cases.
Yet I keep seeing commentary from defense lawyers saying that…
In the opinion issued yesterday in Omnicare, Inc. v. Laborers District Council Construction Industry Pension Fund (“Omnicare”), the Supreme Court rejected the two extremes advocated by the parties regarding how the truth or falsity of statements of opinion should be considered under the securities laws, and instead adopted the middle path advocated in…
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.