By Josh Lawler and Joel B. Ginsberg of Zuber & Taillieu LLP
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit dismissed a putative antitrust case relating to short sale transactions on the grounds that federal securities laws precluded the application of antitrust laws to short sale transactions. The case, Electronic Trading Group LLC v. Banc of America Securities LLC (aka In… More...
In Katz v. Gerardi, 552 F.3d 558 (7th Cir. 2009), the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals splits with the Ninth Circuit in determining that a securities class action can be removed to federal court under the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 despite the anti-removal provisions of the Securities More...
In W.R. Huff Asset Management Co. LLC v. Deloitte & Touche LLP, 549 F.3d 100 (2nd Cir. 2008), the Second Circuit Court of Appeals held that an investment advisor who held the power of attorney to sue on behalf of his clients still lacked the standing to sue because it did not actually have More...
In Guyden v. Aetna, 544 F.3d 376 (2nd Cir. 2008) – a case of first impression in the federal circuit courts -- the Second Circuit confirmed that arbitration provisions are enforceable against an employee who claims that her termination violated the whistleblower protections of the Sarbanes-Oxley More...
In Douglas Millowitz v. Citigroup Global Markets et al (“In Re Salomon Analyst Metromedia Litigation”), 544 F.3d 474 (2nd Cir. 2008), the Second Circuit extended the fraud-on-the-market presumption of reliance, first set forth in Basic v. Levinson, 485 U.S. 224 (1988), to analyst reports. The More...
In In re Merck & Co., Inc. Securities, Derivative & “ERISA” Litig., ___ F.3d ___, 2008 WL 4138476 (3rd Cir. 2008), a federal circuit court revived a securities fraud class action suit against Merck that accuses the pharmaceutical company of hiding the truth about Vioxx and its link to cardiac More...
In its long-awaited opinion in Free Enterprise Fund v. PCAOB, 537 F.3d 667 (D.C. Cir. 2008), the Circuit Court for the D.C. Circuit upheld the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 – specifically that Act’s establishment of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (“PCAOB”) – against More...
In its highly anticipated opinion in Teamsters Local 445 Freight Div. Pension Fund v. Dynex Capital Inc., 531 F.3d 190 (2nd Cir. 2008), the Second Circuit affirmed that a securities fraud plaintiff can plead corporate scienter without specifically identifying the culpable corporate officer or More...
The renowned legal minds of 7th Circuit judges Frank Easterbrook and Richard Posner have clashed again, this time over the validity and applicability of the Gartenberg approach to claims of excessive mutual fund management fees. Judge Easterbrook, currently chief judge of the 7th Circuit, served on More...
Jerry N. Jones v. Harris Associates, 527 F.3d 627 (7th Cir. 2008), was one of about a dozen cases brought in 2003 and early 2004 based on the “excessive fee” provisions of the Investment Company Act of 1940. In the case, a group of individual investors claimed that Harris Associates, manager of More...
At the heart of these two consolidated cases is the clear, admitted, egregious fraud perpetrated by employees of a subsidiary of the Tribune Company. The plaintiffs in both cases (a securities case and an ERISA case) tried to extend liability for those fraudulent acts up through the corporate ranks More...
