Columbia Law School
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The value of U.S. shareholder class action settlements in the first half of 2022 totaled $2.32 billion, the exact amount as the same period in 2021. However, the quantity of settlements in the first six months of the year increased
securities class actions
Issuer Liability: Ownership Structure and the Circularity Debate
In many countries, investors can hold publicly traded companies liable for public misstatements. Issuer liability is intuitively appealing because statements are generally made on behalf of the company by its representatives. Moreover, large companies typically have deep pockets, which ensures …
Does the Threat of Securities Class Actions Add Value for Shareholders? Evidence from China
Securities class actions (SCA) are an important governance mechanism in the U.S. securities market, but there is a significant debate about their costs and benefits to investors. SCA are intended to serve two key functions in investor protection: disciplining and …
Going Private Outside Delaware: Holes in the Director Raincoat and Other Concerns
Meade v. Christie et al., an interlocutory appeal in a shareholder class action challenging a going private merger, is currently pending before the Iowa Supreme Court.[1] The appeal will test the strength of a director-liability shield law patterned on …
ISS Discusses Shareholder Class Actions Related to Covid-19
As the world completes a full two years of navigating the perils of the Coronavirus pandemic, U.S. shareholders continue to file class action complaints alleging companies with various acts of fraud related to COVID-19.
As previously reported by ISS Securities
ISS Discusses Shareholder Class Action Settlements in 2021
As the world will soon reflect on two full years of living through the COVID pandemic, the pace of shareholder-related class action settlements continue to bring significant recoveries back to harmed investors.
In fact, according to ISS Securities Class Action
Gibson Dunn Offers 2021 Mid-Year Securities Litigation Update
The torrid pace of new securities class action filings over the last several years slowed a bit in the first half of 2021, a period in which there have been many notable developments in securities law. This mid-year update briefs …
ISS Discusses Increase in Class Action Settlements for First Half of 2021
As the U.S. and countries around the globe attempt to control the Coronavirus pandemic, investors continue to experience meaningful recoveries from securities-related class action settlements.
In the first half of 2021 (January 1 – June 30), U.S. class action settlements …
Is Everything Securities Fraud?
Securities litigation is almost inevitable for any public company. Often, investors sue because the firm’s managers engaged in fraud that directly harmed the shareholders – say, by doctoring the firm’s financials or lying about known business prospects. However, shareholders also …
Short Sellers, Short Squeezes, and Securities Fraud
Securities fraud and short sellers are strange bedfellows. The stereotypical story involving both happens when short sellers bring to light false statements of issuers, prompting corrective disclosures and giving shareholders a cause of action. At times, issuers accuse these short …
Skadden Discusses Trends in Securities Class Action Filings
Despite unprecedented disruptions to the court system from the COVID-19 pandemic, plaintiffs continued to bring securities class actions at elevated levels in 2020 — a sign that filings will remain high in the year ahead. Based on data from Cornerstone …
Private Company Lies
Rule 10b-5, the federal antifraud catch-all, applies to both public and private company securities. Yet the voluminous case law, and the related scholarly literature, has focused primarily on public corporations and markets.
This state of the world sufficed for …
Gibson Dunn Offers 2020 Year-End Securities Litigation Update
Notwithstanding the ongoing spread of COVID-19 and unprecedented changes in daily life and the economy, the second half of 2020 marched on to the steady drumbeat of securities-related lawsuits we have observed in recent years, including securities class and stockholder …
Cleary Gottlieb Discusses the Morrison Decision, 10 Years On
Ten years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its landmark decision in Morrison v. National Australia Bank Ltd., which limited the extraterritorial application of the federal securities laws in order to prevent the United States from becoming “the Shangri-La of …
The SEC’s Covid-19 Disclosure Guidance Is a Litigation Trap
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been putting pressure on companies that regularly file public reports to make detailed statements about the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on their businesses. Given the many uncertainties about those effects, the disclosures …
Can Institutional Investors Help the Market Evaluate Complex Legal Disputes?
Do institutional investors have the ability to mitigate information asymmetries around complex corporate events? Securities class actions (SCA) are suitable for testing any informational advantage for institutional investors: The number of SCAs brought against U.S. firms has increased markedly in …
CEO Networks and Shareholder Litigation
Academics, notably in sociology and economics, have long understood that social settings are primary drivers of information transmission and economic outcomes, from hiring decisions to product adoption to resource allocation. However, only recently has there been large-sample empirical evidence to …
Does Litigation Risk Make Financial Reports Less Readable?
Financial reports can be opaque, complex, and difficult to understand. As far back as 1998, this was the premise behind the SEC’s Plain English Rule: an unsuccessful attempt to encourage firms to write more readable financial reports. In a new …
Does Litigation Encourage or Deter Real Earnings Management?
Securities class actions may deter financial misreporting and flawed disclosure, but how effective are they at deterring managers from taking actions that sacrifice long-term value for higher profits? In a recent paper, we uncover a novel mechanism that extends the …
The Changing Character of Securities Litigation in 2019: Why It’s Time to Draw Some Distinctions
Securities litigation is growing at a prodigious rate. Is that good or bad? This column will answer that we have to unpack this phenomenon and realize that very different things (with very different implications) are happening simultaneously. Let’s begin with …