Justia Securities Law Opinion Summaries

The Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act (SLUSA), 15 U.S.C. 77p(b)–(f), 78bb(f)), bars private class actions based on state law in cases where the plaintiff alleges a material falsehood or omission connected to the purchase or sale of most federally-regulated securities. In this case, plaintiff filed suit for breach of contract and various fiduciary duties under Massachusetts law. The district judge held that SLUSA barred his claims, and dismissed them with prejudice. The panel held that dismissals pursuant to SLUSA's class-action bar must be for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction—and therefore without prejudice—rather than on the merits. Therefore, the panel affirmed the district court's judgment to the extent it concluded that plaintiff's claims were barred. View "Hampton v. Pacific Investment Management Co." on Justia Law

Globus, a publicly-traded medical device company, terminated its relationship with one of its distributors, Vortex, in keeping with a policy of moving toward in-house sales. Several months later, in August 2014, Globus executives alerted shareholders that sales growth had slowed, attributed the decline in part to the decision to terminate its contract with Vortex, and revised Globus’s revenue guidance downward for fiscal year 2014. The price of Globus shares fell by approximately 18% the following day. Globus shareholders contend the company and its executives violated the Securities Exchange Act, 15 U.S.C. 78j(b) and Rule 10b-5 and defrauded investors by failing to disclose the company’s decision to terminate the distributor contract and by issuing revenue projections that failed to account for this decision. The Third Circuit affirmed dismissal of the case. Globus had no duty to disclose either its decision to terminate its relationship with Vortex or the completed termination of that relationship. Plaintiffs did not sufficiently plead that a drop in sales was inevitable; that the revenue projections were false when made; nor that that Globus incorporated anticipated revenue from Vortex in its projections. View "Williams v. Globus Medical, Inc." on Justia Law

The First Circuit affirmed the district court’s finding, in this securities fraud class action against Sarepta Therapeutics, Inc. and former and current Sarepta executives, that Plaintiffs, several shareholders, failed to allege facts creating a strong inference that Defendants intentionally or recklessly deceived the investing public in the months before the Food and Drug Administration deemed premature Sarepta’s application for approval of a novel gene therapy. The price of the publicly traded securities issued by Sarepta dropped sixty-four percent after the FDA judged Sarepta’s filing premature. Plaintiffs allegedly that Defendants overstated the significance of certain data and exaggerated the likelihood that the FDA would accept a new drug application for filing, thereby deceiving the investing public and causing the purchase of Sarepta securities at inflated prices. The First Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of this action, holding that Plaintiffs failed to satisfy the requisite pleadings standards. View "Corban v. Sarepta Therapeutics, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs appealed the district court's dismissal of their amended securities fraud class action complaint, alleging that Atossa and its Chairman and CEO, Steven Quay, made a series of public statements about Atossa's breast cancer screening products that were materially false or misleading. The district court dismissed the complaint. The Ninth Circuit held that plaintiffs have properly alleged falsity and materiality as to some, but not all, of these statements. In this case, plaintiffs have sufficiently alleged that the following were materially false or misleading: (1) Quay's statement quoted in Atossa's December 20, 2012 Form 8–K filing describing the ForeCYTE Test as "FDA-cleared"; (2) Quay's statement during his interview with NewsMedical.Net that the ForeCYTE test had "gone through all of the FDA clearance process"; (3) Atossa's Form 8–K filing on February 25, 2013, giving notice of the FDA's warning letter; and (4) Quay's statement during his interview with the Wall Street Transcript that "FDA clearance risk has been achieved." Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, reversed in part, vacated in part, and remanded. View "Levi v. Atossa Genetics, Inc." on Justia Law

Patel saved $560,000, enough to purchase a 7-Eleven franchise. He kept the money with Portfolio; the contract gave Wagha discretion over the funds’ deployment. Wagha invested much of the money in options. By the time Patel needed the funds (four months later), the market was down and he had lost a considerable sum. A jury concluded that Wagha and Portfolio had broken their promise to invest the money conservatively and awarded Patel $136,000 for breach of contract plus $64,000 for securities fraud. The district court remitted the $64,000 award, ruling that Patel has not shown loss causation, but entered judgment on the $136,000 award. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, holding that the district court retained jurisdiction after it resolved the federal law claim. In addition, the federal-law claim should not have been dismissed. The premise of that holding—that the securities laws are concerned only with inaccurate pricing—was incorrect. Securities laws forbid fraud in all aspects of securities transactions, whether or not the fraud affects the instruments’ prices. One kind of fraud is procuring securities known to be unsuitable to a client’s investment goals, after promising to further those goals. View "Patel v. Portfolio Diversification Group, Inc." on Justia Law

OCC, a clearing agency that facilitates trades in options and other financial instruments, developed a Capital Plan in an attempt to boost its capital reserves and to alter how fees and refunds were calculated. The DC Circuit remanded to the SEC, which approved OCC's proposed change to its rules, for further proceedings. In this case, the change was subject to approval by the SEC, which granted approval without itself making the findings and determinations prescribed by the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The court held that, because the SEC effectively abdicated its responsibility to OCC, this did not represent the kind of reasoned decisionmaking required by either the Exchange Act or the Administrative Procedure Act. View "Susquehanna International Group v. SEC" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed this would-be class action on behalf of all persons or entities who purchased or otherwise acquired the common stock of QSI, alleging that during the Class Period, QSI and its officers made false or misleading statements about the current and past state of QSI's sales "pipeline," and used those statements to support public guidance to investors about QSI's projected growth and revenue. The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's dismissal of the complaint and remanded for further proceedings. The panel held that some of defendants' statements were mixed statements, containing non-forward-looking statements as well as forward-looking statements of projected revenue and earnings; a defendant may not transform non-forward-looking statements into forward-looking statements that are protected by the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act (PSLRA), 15 U.S.C. 78u-5, by combining non-forward-looking statements about past or current facts with forward-looking statements about projected revenues and earnings; many of defendants' non-forward-looking statements were materially false or misleading; and some of defendants' forward-looking statements were materially false or misleading, were not accompanied by appropriate cautionary statements, and were made with actual knowledge of their false or misleading nature. View "City of Miami Fire Fighters' and Police Officers' Retirement Trust v. Quality Systems, Inc." on Justia Law

Stratasys shareholders filed a securities fraud action claiming several company promotional statements were knowingly false. The Eighth Circuit affirmed the district court's determination that these statements were mere puffery and that the shareholders failed to sufficiently plead that Stratasys knew its statements were false when made. In this case, the statements the shareholders claim were materially misleading were so vague and such obvious hyperbole that no reasonable investor would rely upon them. Therefore, without tying the timing of the knowledge to the allegedly misleading statements, the shareholders did not plead facts sufficient to support a strong inference of scienter. View "Macomb County Employees Retirement System v. Stratasys Ltd." on Justia Law

ACE filed suit against LifeTime Funds' investment adviser, PMC, for breach of its section 36(b) fiduciary duty to the LifeTime Funds under the Investment Company Act (ICA) of 1940, 15 U.S.C. 80a-35(b). ACE based its excessiveness-of-adviser-fees challenge on all or part of the adviser fees paid to PMC by the funds in which the LifeTime Funds invest, fees which indirectly reduced the net asset values of the LifeTime Funds. The Eighth Circuit affirmed the district court's entry of judgment for PMC based on lack of statutory standing, holding that ACE cannot sue on behalf of a fund in which it lacks an interest. In this case, each mutual fund was a separate unregistered investment company and ACE had no security interest in the underlying funds. Therefore, the cross appeal and the motion to dismiss the cross appeal were moot or denied as moot. View "American Chemicals & Equipment Inc. 401(K) Retirement Plan v. Principal Management Corp." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, retired officers of Booz Allen, filed suit alleging that they were improperly denied compensation when, after their retirement, Booz Allen sold one of its divisions in the Carlyle Transaction. The Second Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), 29 U.S.C. 1001 et seq., claims on the ground that Booz Allen's stock-distribution program was not a pension plan within the meaning of ERISA, and denial as futile leave to amend to "augment" the ERISA claims with new allegations; affirmed the dismissal of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), 18 U.S.C. 1961 et seq., claims on the ground that they were barred by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (PSLRA), 18 U.S.C. 1964(c); but vacated the district court's judgment to the extent it denied Plaintiff Kocourek leave to amend to add securities-fraud causes of action. The court remanded for the district court to consider his claims. View "Pasternack v. Shrader" on Justia Law