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Mealey's Securities

  • November 19, 2024

    Employee Appeals To 9th Circuit Final Judgment, Order In Insider Trading Case

    SAN FRANCISCO — An employee of a biopharmaceutical company who was found by a jury to be liable under the civil misappropriation theory of insider trading appealed to the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals the district court’s final judgment imposing a permanent injunction from violating securities laws and civil penalty, the court’s order denying his post-trial motions for judgment as a matter of law and a new hearing, “as well as from any and all other adverse orders and rulings.”

  • November 18, 2024

    Insurance Mogul Says Deposition Sealing Not Needed In SEC Fraud Suit Against Him

    WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Insurance mogul Greg Lindberg, a former owner of insurers now in receivership, on Nov. 15 filed in a North Carolina federal court a notice stating that “continued sealing” of certain transcript excerpts of his deposition is unnecessary in a suit filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission alleging that he, his advisory services company and its former executive defrauded clients of more than $75 million.

  • November 04, 2024

    High Court Allows Solicitor General To Participate In Scienter Pleading Arguments

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court granted a motion by the United States for leave to participate in oral argument and for divided argument in an appeal over the pleading requirements for alleging scienter under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (PSLRA) based on allegations related to internal company documents and the PSLRA falsity requirement.

  • November 14, 2024

    2nd Circuit Won’t Review Dismissal Of Whistleblower Suit Against Reinsurer, Others

    NEW YORK — Saying in part that there is “substantial evidence” for the conclusion that the petitioner “did not subjectively believe that” the conduct he cited in a whistleblower retaliation complaint “constituted criminal fraud or violated any securities law provisions,” a Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel issued a Nov. 13 summary order declining to review dismissal of the complaint.

  • November 14, 2024

    Supreme Court Hears Arguments On Particularity Standards Under PSLRA

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments Nov. 13 in an appeal over the pleading requirements for alleging scienter under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (PSLRA) based on allegations related to internal company documents and the PSLRA falsity requirement.

  • November 12, 2024

    10th Circuit: No Jurisdiction To Hear Appeal Over Unfreezing Assets In SEC Case

    DENVER — A 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel dismissed for lack of jurisdiction an interlocutory appeal by a couple, the couple’s alleged shell companies and a limited liability company seeking to unfreeze some of their assets while the Securities and Exchange Commission’s case against them and others for a fraudulent investment scheme proceeds.

  • November 11, 2024

    Schedule Extension Sought In Breach Of Contract Suit Over Life Policy Payout

    CINCINNATI —  Parties in a liquidating trustee’s breach of contract suit against an insurer for failure to pay the full amount owed on a life insurance policy filed a motion in Ohio federal court seeking an extension of the case schedule outlined in a previous case management order.

  • November 08, 2024

    2nd Circuit Affirms Dismissal Of Class Action Brought After Media Merger

    NEW YORK — The Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of a class action alleging that the merger of two media companies caused a drop in the value of stock held by Ohio public pension funds after determining that the district court correctly found that the shareholders failed to show how disclosures made by the merged company were misleading to investors.

  • November 08, 2024

    5th Circuit Denies Whistleblowers’ Petitions To Rehear SEC Award Dispute

    NEW ORLEANS — The Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied two whistleblowers’ petitions for rehearing after the panel denied their petitions for review of an order regarding whistleblower awards from the Securities and Exchange Commission.  The petitions for review challenged the SEC’s calculation of award amounts.

  • November 07, 2024

    1st Circuit Affirms Finding 3D Printing Company Made No Misleading Statements

    BOSTON — A panel of the First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed a district court’s grant of a 3D printing company’s motion to dismiss a class action against it for failure to state a claim. Investors filed the action after the disclosure of an internal investigation and later product recall led to a drop in the company’s stock.

  • November 07, 2024

    Justices Question Facebook, Investors Over Disclosing Data-Sharing Incident

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — In oral arguments held Nov. 6 in the U.S. Supreme Court, attorneys for Facebook Inc. (now known as Meta Platforms Inc.) and a group of its investors fielded queries about whether Facebook’s failure to disclose its past sharing of users’ data with a third-party analytics firm in risk statements constituted securities fraud because the incident amounted to a risk of future harm.

  • November 06, 2024

    2nd Circuit Holds Investor Lacked Standing To Bring RMBS-Related Suit

    NEW YORK — The Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed a district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the trustee of residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) trusts after determining that an investor in the RMBS trusts lacked prudential and contractual standing to pursue its claims.

  • November 05, 2024

    2nd Circuit Vacates Dismissal Of Securities Act Claims Against Content Aggregator

    NEW YORK — A Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel vacated via summary order the dismissal of a case in which a lower court found claim that against a Chinese mobile content aggregator stemming from comments made about its initial public offering (IPO) and secondary public offering (SPO) sounded in fraud rather than negligence.

  • November 04, 2024

    Judge Approves $21M Class Settlement Over Silver Mine’s Alleged Misrepresentations

    DENVER — A federal judge in Colorado approved a settlement of $21 million to end class allegations that a silver mine overstated its reserves in several Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

  • November 04, 2024

    Judge Asks Parties To Consider Alternative Resolution To Stay Of Crypto Case

    SAN FRANCISCO — Days after ruling on four motions to exclude expert testimony in a securities case involving crypto tokens, a federal judge in California responded to a joint motion for entry of final judgment and asked the parties to consider an alternative resolution.

  • November 04, 2024

    Energy Company, Execs Win Dismissal Of Securities Suit Concerning Hawaiian Fire

    SAN FRANCISCO — Ruling in part that shareholders didn’t sufficiently allege that some challenged statements were false or misleading, a California federal judge granted dismissal with leave to amend in a putative class case over claims that an energy company in Hawaii and certain of its executives made false claims about the company’s level of preparedness for events such as the August 2023 wildfires in Maui.

  • October 30, 2024

    1st Circuit Sends Investment Dispute For New Trial; Cross-Examination Needed

    BOSTON — The First U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a lower court abused its discretion when it prohibited cross-examination about a consent order in an unrelated matter during trial in a case brought by one doctor accusing another doctor of omitting material information about two investments in violation of the Massachusetts Uniform Securities Act (MUSA).

  • October 30, 2024

    SEC:  4 Companies Will Pay More Than $6.9M For Misleading Cybersecurity Disclosures

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Securities and Exchange Commission announced that four current and former public companies will pay a total of $6,985,000 in civil penalties to settle charges that they violated Section 8A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21C of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 by making materially misleading disclosures regarding cybersecurity risks and intrusions.

  • October 29, 2024

    Without Standing, 3rd Circuit Says Fired Employees’ Whistleblower Dispute Is Moot

    PHILADELPHIA — A majority of a Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel found that two former Exxon Mobil Corp. employees who allege that they were fired in violation of federal whistleblower protection laws failed to establish a mootness exception to maintain standing after they invoked the kick-out provision in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX), which led to an administrative law judge dismissing the administrative proceedings, but one judge dissented, questioning whether any district court has the jurisdiction to enforce noncompliance of a reinstatement order.

  • October 25, 2024

    2nd Circuit Upholds Dismissal Of Suit Alleging Conspiracy In Credit Swap Market

    NEW YORK — A financial services company failed to plausibly allege that six of the world’s largest banks conspired to halt its entry into the credit default swap (CDS) trading platform market in violation of federal and state antitrust laws, the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held in affirming a federal court’s dismissal of the company’s lawsuit.

  • October 23, 2024

    2nd Circuit Affirms Dismissal Of Investors’ $500M Class Claims Against Wells Fargo

    NEW YORK — The Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of a putative class action in which two investors sought more than $500 million in damages from Wells Fargo Securities LLC for abruptly liquidating a portfolio of investments, finding that the investors failed to allege that Wells Fargo owed them a duty and failed to allege a contractual relationship that Wells Fargo breached.

  • October 23, 2024

    Final Judgment Entered In Suit Over Missouri ESG Factor Rules

    JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Noting that Missouri state officials have deposited an agreed attorney fee payment of $500,000 and that the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has granted their motion to dismiss with prejudice their appeal of a ruling that imposed a statewide permanent injunction barring enforcement of parts of two new rules that a plaintiff trade association said would have required “a state-authored script” for “incorporating a social or nonfinancial objective into investment advice,” a federal judge in Missouri granted the parties’ joint motion for final judgment.

  • October 22, 2024

    Crypto Asset Firm Cross-Appeals $120M Civil Penalty Ruling In Dispute With SEC

    NEW YORK — A crypto asset firm filed a notice indicating that it is cross-appealing a New York federal court’s ruling that required it to pay more than $120 million as a civil penalty after granting the Securities and Exchange Commission’s motion for entry of final judgment on the commission’s allegations that cryptocurrencies sold by the firm were effectively unregistered securities.

  • October 18, 2024

    10th Circuit Backs Dismissal Of Overstock Shareholder’s Market Manipulation Suit

    DENVER — Affirming dismissal of a putative class action in which a shareholder asserted securities fraud claims against an online retailer and some executives, a 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held in part “that an open-market transaction may qualify as manipulative conduct, but only if accompanied by plausibly alleged deception,” noting that it was an issue “of first impression for this court.”

  • October 18, 2024

    Delaware High Court Briefed On T-Mobile AI-Program Shareholder Derivative Action

    WILMINGTON, Del. — Instances where a director acts in the interests of a parent while sitting on the board of a subsidiary require a different standard because in such cases, there would be no paper trail evidence of an effort to provide profits only for the parent, a woman leading a shareholder derivative action says in asking the Delaware Supreme Court to revive a case alleging that a parent company directed T-Mobile US Inc. to centralize data for an artificial intelligence project, leaving the latter susceptible to cyberattack.  But in an answering brief, the appellees tell the court that the woman’s appeal was full of challenges she didn’t raise below and therefore had waived and that even on the merits, she could not show that the parent company alone would have profited from the data-sharing program.