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Supreme Court
Gibson Dunn Offers 2022 Year-End Securities Litigation Update
Although the number of securities lawsuits filed this year remained steady compared to 2021, we have seen many notable developments in securities law. This year-end update provides an overview of the major developments in federal and state securities litigation since …
How a Supreme Court Anti-Bribery Decision Helped Create a Corporate Protection Racket
On June 27, 2016, the Supreme Court dramatically changed anticorruption law and enforcement in the United States. In McDonnell v. United States, the court reversed the corruption conviction of the former governor of Virginia and considerably constricted the legal …
How to Reform Our Abysmal Insider Trading Framework
The U.S. insider trading framework is a mess. Principles apply that are inconsistent with one another and that treat similarly situated persons in a disparate manner. In my 2021 book and a forthcoming book chapter, I argue that, rather than …
John C. Coffee, Jr.: The Blaszczak Bombshell and What It Will Mean
United States v. Blaszczak[1] has long been a one-off case that did not fit the mold of the traditional insider trading prosecution, but now — following a 2-1 decision of the Second Circuit in December, reversing most of the …
Gibson Dunn Offers 2022 Mid-Year Securities Litigation Update
The number of securities lawsuits filed since January has remained steady compared to the first half of 2021. We have already seen many notable developments in securities law this year. This mid-year update provides an overview of the major developments …
Climate Change, West Virginia v. EPA, and the SEC’s Distinctive Statutory Mandate
In March 2022, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed a rule that would require publicly traded companies to provide investors with various climate-related disclosures (the Proposal).[1]The rule has generated extensive debate and the SEC has received more …
Wachtell Lipton Discusses Important Supreme Court Business Cases
Last Thursday, the Supreme Court concluded its most tumultuous Term in recent memory. The Term was marked by a number of closely divided decisions on contentious issues ranging from President Biden’s vaccination mandate to gun rights to religious liberty. Anticipation …
The Two-Front War on the Administrative State: How Far Will the Supreme Court Go?
The hostility of at least a plurality of the Supreme Court to the Administrative State has become increasingly evident. This faction has been pursuing a two-front war: First, it has significantly curbed (or seems about to curb) the enforcement powers …
Sullivan & Cromwell Discusses Supreme Court Decision on Exemption to Federal Arbitration Act
Among other things, the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) authorizes U.S. courts to enforce arbitration agreements in “contract[s] evidencing a transaction involving commerce,” but excludes from its scope “contracts of employment of seamen, railroad employees, or any other class of workers …
Sullivan & Cromwell Discusses Recent Rulings’ Effects on SEC Use of Administrative Forum
Two cases—one recently accepted for review by the Supreme Court, and another recently decided by the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit—could change the manner in which the SEC brings enforcement actions against those accused of violating federal securities …
The Most Dangerous Branch: Is the Supreme Court Dismantling the Administrative State?
At first glance, the question posed above may sound slightly paranoid. Still, sometimes a measure of paranoia may be justified. In any event, this column is less a prediction of the future than a review of what is actually happening, …
Gibson Dunn Offers 2021 Year-End Securities Litigation Update
Federal securities filings continued to slow during the second half of 2021. The volume of new securities cases filed in 2021 fell by 36% compared to 2020, and 51% compared to 2019. Nonetheless, federal and state securities laws continue to …
Why the Campaign Against Corporate Personhood Is Misguided
Considerable controversy has surrounded the Supreme Court’s sharply divided decisions in Citizens United and Hobby Lobby. Critics argue that giving business corporations unwarranted constitutional protections entrenches corporate power at the expense of democracy by putting legal fictions on the …
The Supreme Court and the Fraud on the Market Class Action
The class action is indispensable to private enforcement of SEC Rule 10b-5, which prohibits fraudulent practices in the secondary securities market. Though Rule 10b-5 is a criminal provision, courts have long inferred a private civil right of action, allowing defrauded …
Personhood, Procedure, and the Endurance of Corporate Compliance
Despite its significant role in preventing and deterring wrongdoing, corporate compliance’s long-term prospects remain an open question. How strongly does a company’s inclination to redress wrongdoing rest on a credible threat of outside enforcement?
This is one of the questions …
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 …
Supreme Risk for FINRA and Other SROs
Most efforts to manage systemic risk tend to focus on risks arising from within financial markets, from existing regulators, or from legislative misadventures. Yet self-regulatory organizations (SROs) and the markets that depend on their steady functioning now face an underappreciated …
Wachtell Lipton Discusses Important Supreme Court Business Cases Last Term and Next
The Supreme Court’s now-concluded October Term 2020 marked a slow return to normalcy following the disruption of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Court released only 56 signed opinions — just a handful more than the prior Term, and well below the …
Administrative Crimes: A Qualified Defense
On his way out, President Trump sought to “protect Americans from overcriminalization” by trying to limit the criminal enforcement of regulatory offenses. Hostility to administrative crimes is growing at the Supreme Court too, in part as an outgrowth of concern …