ABA Sound Advice: Conducting Civil Rights Audits: Benefits and Best Practices
The Justice Insiders: The Administrative State is Not Your Friend - A Conversation with Professor Richard Epstein
Litigation developments: federal forum provisions
The "Compass Rose" Method for Corporate Witness Interviews
Investment Management and Private Funds Roundtable: TALF 2020 and PPP Update
Securities Litigation and Disclosure Issues
Investment Management Roundtable Discussion – Regulatory and Enforcement Update
Podcast: Non-binding Guidance: SEC Disclosure Issues for Life Sciences Companies
Life Sciences Quarterly (Q3 2019): SEC Enforcement and Class Actions Regarding FDA Communications
Podcast: Credit Funds: What Managers Need to Know and Practical Tips to Avoid Insider Trading Risks
The streak of good news in D&O litigation risk ends this year, with a rise in class action filings and bigger settlements. But the D&O market is still soft, so staying on top of the evolving risk landscape will help you...more
It has been two years since public companies saw a marked decrease in the number of securities class action filings against them. In 2022, 168 class actions were filed, a record low since 2014; however, 2024 activity is...more
This month's SPAC Notebook follows up on our recent discussion of risk mitigation and due diligence tips for foreign companies going public in the US. We want to share more information on the current litigation environment...more
On May 10, 2024, Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California granted a motion to dismiss a putative class action against a global footwear and apparel company...more
On March 18, 2024, Judge Rachel P. Kovner of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York dismissed with prejudice a putative shareholders’ class action against a mobile game development company (the...more
Imagine that you are a startup founder and CEO. You toil for years in the hot sun, painstakingly cultivating your business as it grows from a vulnerable seed into a promising sapling. It’s grow or die. You grow. Now you...more
Here we are again—another year of SPAC ennui. We’re hearing derisive comments about the death of SPACs, unending deadline extensions, almost 200 liquidations, 70 deal terminations, and general SPAC malaise. If you’ve followed...more
Despite fewer companies going public in 2023, we saw an unwelcome uptick in class action lawsuit filings. After a period of relief in securities class action (SCA) filings—three years to be exact—the tide is officially...more
The U.S. Supreme Court will likely decide before the end of its current term whether the failure to make a disclosure pursuant to Item 303 of Regulation S-K can serve as the basis for a securities fraud claim under Section...more
From SPACs to COVID-19, several trends have appeared in core filing activity in recent years. The data below is from Securities Class Action Filings—2023 Midyear Assessment....more
Securities class action activity in 2023 reflects the environment the business community is experiencing: Economic activity has slowed as companies deal with the high costs of doing business. In the first half of 2023, the...more
Supreme Court Hears Argument on Traceability Requirement in Circuit-Split Slack v. Pirani - Key Points - - Before the end of June, the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to issue a decision in a high-profile securities case...more
Woodruff Sawyer's D&O DataBox™ Year-End Report provides insights about securities class action activities, developments, and historical trends—sourced from DataBox, our proprietary database and leading resource for securities...more
During 2022, securities case filings fell for the fourth consecutive year and were down slightly from 2021. The number of announced settlements rose substantially last year, as did total settlement amounts. The 2022...more
Tumultuous, exasperating, difficult, nerve-wracking, and frustrating are all apt descriptions of the 2022 SPAC market. We’ve summarized some of its ups and downs in our year in review blog post from October and have touched...more
In the first nine months of 2022, plaintiffs filed 157 securities class action lawsuits, according to Cornerstone Research — a figure only slightly lower than the 162 filings in the same period in 2021. Looking behind the...more
Cornerstone Research reports that during the first six months of 2022, plaintiffs filed 110 securities class actions, a pace that is generally in line — 2.8% higher — with what we saw in the second half of 2021. Looking...more
The use of SPACs to take companies public increased dramatically in recent years, but many of these new companies performed poorly after entering the public capital markets. This poor performance, often accompanied by...more
In the first published decision of a court of appeal outside Delaware, on April 28, 2022, the California Court of Appeal in Wong v. Restoration Robotics, Case No. A161489, affirmed the trial court’s decision to enforce a...more
On April 28, 2022, the California Court of Appeal issued a much-anticipated decision in Wong v. Restoration Robotics, Case No. A161489, enforcing a forum selection clause contained in a corporate charter provision that...more
The use of Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (“SPACs”) has exploded in recent years. SPACs are an increasingly popular way for private companies to become publicly traded without undergoing a traditional initial public...more
Recent statements by regulators and new court decisions signal continued scrutiny of SPACs and operating companies going public through de-SPAC mergers. Key Points: ..The SEC has indicated that it will continue its...more
In 2021, 182 securities class actions were filed against issuers of stock listed on US exchanges. This statistic means that the total number of annual filings in 2021 was down 13% compared to 2020. As highlighted in our...more
In 2021, there were 613 initial public offerings (“IPOs”) of Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (“SPACs”), after 248 SPACs went public in 2020 and 59 in 2019. Prior to 2021, there had not been more than 500 IPOs of any...more
The SPAC market has withstood many challenges throughout 2021, including softening of the private investment in public equity (PIPE) market for a majority of the year after a very robust first quarter for initial business...more