What Is a Direct Listing?
A unanimous Supreme Court has confirmed that a claim brought under section 11 of the Securities Act of 1933 ("1933 Act") requires that a plaintiff plead and prove that the shares purchased were issued pursuant to an allegedly...more
The unanimous opinion requires shareholder plaintiffs to plead and prove that they purchased shares traceable to an allegedly false or misleading registration statement. On June 1, 2023, the US Supreme Court issued its...more
The U.S. Supreme Court held that purchasers of shares sold to the public through a direct listing cannot sue under Section 11 of the Securities Act of 1933 unless they can trace their shares to an allegedly defective...more
The US Supreme Court recently agreed to hear an important appeal of a US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decision interpreting Sections 11 and 12(a)(2) of the Securities Act of 1933 in the context of a direct stock...more
On September 20, 2021, in Pirani v. Slack Technologies, Inc., a divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that investors who purchase stock in a “direct listing”—in which pre-existing shares are...more
On September 20, 2021, in the first case by a U.S. Court of Appeals to have considered the issue, the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held that a shareholder plaintiff had statutory standing to pursue claims under...more
The decision appears to create a new rule for determining standing to bring Securities Act claims in the context of direct listings. The Slack Direct Listing Decision - On September 20, 2021, the US Court of Appeals...more
Yesterday, by another 3-2 vote, the SEC approved changes to NYSE listing rules relating to primary direct listings after conducting a “de novo” review following objections raised by certain investors and commentators. In...more
The current proposal, which was submitted by the NYSE on June 22, 2020, would, like the prior proposal, allow a private company seeking to raise capital through a direct listing to satisfy the NYSE's market value requirement...more
Less than a week after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") rejected a proposed rule change to permit primary capital raising in direct listings, the New York Stock Exchange ("NYSE") submitted an updated...more
On December 6, 2019, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rejected a proposed New York Stock Exchange ("NYSE") rule change that would allow companies to raise capital in a direct listing...more
Yesterday, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) filed a revised proposal with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to allow companies to sell shares on their own behalf in direct listings. Last week, as discussed in our...more
The Situation: Direct listings, through which a company lists its shares on a national stock exchange without conducting a traditional initial public offering ("IPO"), have received significant attention from the media and...more
On November 26, 2019, the New York Stock Exchange (“NYSE”) filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) a proposed rule change that would allow companies to simultaneously go public through a direct listing and...more
On February 2018, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) approved the New York Stock Exchange’s (the “NYSE”) proposal to permit qualifying private companies to use “direct listings” to list their shares on the NYSE so...more
The chatter has it that some unicorns are considering skipping the standard underwritten IPO in favor of a “direct listing.” Essentially, this process involves a registered sale by selling shareholders directly into the...more
On February 2, 2018, the SEC approved the New York Stock Exchange’s proposal to permit qualifying private companies to use “direct listings” to list their shares on the NYSE and become publicly traded without conducting an...more