Sky Blog
Just six months ago, when the Supreme Court’s current term opened in October, things looked bleak for the class action. Three major cases were on the Court’s docket, and each seemed handpicked as a vehicle for the Court’s conservatives to …
The Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy recently published a symposium issue on the implications of the Supreme Court’s decision in Halliburton Co. v. Erica P. John Fund, Inc. (“Halliburton II”).[1] In my contribution, …
The sharp increase in mergers and acquisitions litigation has generated widespread skepticism about the utility of such cases and, along with it, skepticism about the role played by the plaintiffs’ law firms that bring them. Deal suits are broadly perceived …
In 2003 Carnival merged with Princess Cruises to form the largest cruise ship company in the world, now known as Carnival Corp. & PLC. Prior to the merger, Carnival was listed on the New York Stock Exchange and Princess was …
Arbitration as a means of dispute resolution is intended to help consumers and businesses save time and money and achieve fair results when compared to traditional litigation. Millions of contracts for consumer financial products and services have a pre-dispute arbitration …
To listen to the Chamber of Commerce, one would think that class actions are the most significant scourge on business ever conjured up by man. In brief after brief to the Supreme Court, the Chamber of Commerce and other business …
By motivating lawyers to handle class actions, fee awards enable millions of people to obtain access to justice every year and strengthen the effect of regulatory laws. But the process by which judges decide how much to pay lawyers has …
Courts and commenters regularly describe corporate charters and bylaws as “contracts” among shareholders. This necessarily raises the question whether the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA)[1] – which requires that arbitration clauses in “contracts” be enforced according to their terms – …
All eyes are on Delaware, where soon the Delaware Bar Association will recommend to the state legislature whether or not to curb the Delaware Supreme Court’s decision last year to uphold the facial validity of a board-approved bylaw that shifted …
A divided Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 [in the last week of March] that certification of an antitrust class action was not proper because plaintiffs failed to establish that damages caused by actionable antitrust injury were capable of measurement …
Virtually all brokerage firms’ customer agreements require arbitration of disputes in the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) forum. FINRA regulates the contents of these predispute arbitration agreements (PDAAs) and prohibits broker-dealers from requiring customers to give up the right to …
Although the volume of private securities class action filings has dropped recently, these lawsuits remain both a significant worry for issuers, investment banks, auditing firms and other potential defendants, and an arguably useful supplement to governmental enforcement of securities antifraud …